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Author’s National Edition 





THE WRITINGS OF 
MARK TWAIN 
VOLUME XVI 


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FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1884 












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CONNECTICUT YANKEE 

IN | 
KING ARTHUR’S COURT 


BY 
MARK TWAIN 


(SAMUEL L, CLEMENS) 


ILLUSTRATED 





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HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 


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PREFACE 


THE ungentle laws and customs touched upon in 
this tale are historical, and the episodes which are 
used to illustrate them are also historical. It is 
not pretended that these laws and customs existed in 
England in the sixth century; no, it is only pretended 
that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other 
civilizations of far later times, it is safe to consider that 
it is no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to 
have been in practice in that day also. One is quite 
justified in inferring that whatever one of these laws or 
customs was lacking in that remote time, its place was 
competently filled by a worse one. 

The question as to whether there is such a thing as 
divine right of kings is not settled in this book. It 
was found too difficult. That the executive head of a 
nation should be a person of lofty character and 
extraordinary ability, was manifest and indisputable; 
that none but the Deity could select that head unerr- | 


ingly, was also manifest and indisputable; that the 
(41) 


iv Preface 


Deity ought to make that selection, then, was likewise 
manifest and indisputable; consequently, that He does 
make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable deduction. I 
mean, until the author of this book encountered the 
Pompadour, and Lady Castlemaine, and some other 
executive heads of that kind; these were found so 
difficult to work into the scheme, that it was judged 
better to take the other tack in this book (which must 
be issued this fall), and then go into training and 
settle the question in another book. It is, of course, 
a thing which ought to be settled, and I am not going 
to have anything particular to do next winter anyway. 
MARK TWAIN. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


EES SS eae OMe gee SF gay Frontispiece 
THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND . . Dan Beard . . 18 
HOW REFRESHING IT WAS . . .WDanBeard . . 95 


THE KING ° e e e Fy ° e « Dan Beard ° ° 242 





lee 







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CONTENTS 





A Word of Explanation . . .« » 0 « e 


CHAPTER I. 


DONE ise) = 6 6 (+e y ou'e te at 


CHAPTER II. 
King Arthur’s Court, . « « 0 6 « « 


CHAPTER III. 
Knights of the Table Round . . . .« - 


CHAPTER IV. 
Sir Dinadan the Humorist . . 2. « © e 


CHAPTER V. 
An Inspiration. . . Tae ae 


CHAPTER VI. 
The Eclipse, a . es e 3 = ° ° e e 


CHAPTER VII. 
EUR WIWEE hig ps6, 6 hee Lee 
CHAPTER VIII. 


The Boss ces © 8 be 6 ve, Vel’ oe)» 


CHAPTER IX. 


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22 


23 


36 


40 


55 


63 


viii 


Beginnings of Civilization 


Slow Torture 


Freemen! . 


** Defend Thee, Lord!’ , 


Sandy’s Tale 


Morgan le Fay 


A Royal Banquet . 


In the Queen’s Dungeons 


CHAPTER XIII. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


CHAPTER X. 


CHAPTER XI. 


The Yankee in Search of Adventures 


CHAPTER XII. 


CHAPTER XV. 


Contents 


° 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


CHAPTER XIX, 


Knight Errantry as a Trade . 


The Ogre’s Castle . 


The Pilgrims 


CHAPTER XXI, 


CHAPTER XX. 


° 


77 


83 


92 


98 


108 


113 


123 


131 


142 


154 


158 


167 


Contents 


CHAPTER XXII. 
Beer eeOny WOUNAIN 5 6 5 kg ee. pt 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Restoration of the Fountain. . . . - 6 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
A Rival Magician 2 ® >. e . ° ° e ° s 


CHAPTER XXV. 


A Competitive Examination . .. .. » 


CHAPTER XXVI. 
mee Pitet Newspaper...) ss 6 «8 8 


CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Yankee and the King Travel Incognito. . 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 
DRG RE 4) 6 se ee Wes Ve 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
The Small-Pox Hut ® e e . e e e * e 


CHAPTER XXX. 
The Tragedy of the Manor-House. . . « « 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


Marco ° e e ° > « e e e e . e - 


CHAPTER XXXII, 


Dewey's Hlumiliation . . . « + « « « 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 
Sixth Century Political Economy . . . » >» 


ix 


881 


- 193 


203 


216 


230 


243 


253 


286 


294 


x Contents 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 
The Yankee and the King Sold as Slaves . » 


CHAPTER XXXV. 
A Pitiful Incident 6) rest 52a Se lee. 6. 8) 28 2 @ 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


An Encounter in the Dark . . . 2. «© ec e« 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 
An Awful Predicament . . . «2 + « « 

CHAPTER XXXViii. 
Sir Launcelot and Knights to the Rescue. . .« 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 
The Yankee’s Fight with the Knights . . « 


CHAPTER XL. 


apree Veats Latet, . os 5s Oe ee eee 


CHAPTER XLI. 
The Interdict oe! Loree ge i ee es ee eee 


CHAPTER XLII. 


War! Pe eee Yuley” Mme ra eee oe Se 


CHAPTER XLIII, 
The Battle of the Sand-Belt. . . .« 2 « e 


CHAPTER XLIV, 
A Postscript by Clarence. o.1e aera 


Final P. Bs by M. Me 2 uN Set as ey OF 


ein 38. 


2 « 360 


+ » 374 


A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING 
ARTHUR’S COURT 





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A WORD OF EXPLANATION 


T was in Warwick Castle that I came across the 
curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. 
He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, 
his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the 
restfulness of his company — for he did all the talking. 
We fell together, as modest people will, in the tail of 
the herd that was being shown through, and he at once 
began to say things which interested me. As he 
talked along, softly, pleasantly, flowingly, he seemed 
to drift away imperceptibly out of this world and time, 
and into some remote era and old forgotten country; 
and so he gradually wove such a spell about me that I 
seemed to move among the specters and shadows and 
dust and meld of a gray antiquity, holding speech with 
a relic of it! Exactly as I would speak of my nearest 
personal friends or enemies, or my most familiar 
neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de 
Ganis, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all 
the other great names of the Table Round — and how 
old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry and 
musty and ancient he came to look as he went on! 
Presently he turned to me and said, just as one might 
speak of the weather, or any other common matter — 
**'You know about transmigration of souls; do you 
know about transposition of epochs — and bodies?’’ 
I said I had not heard of it. He was so little inter- 
ios (11) 


412 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ested — just as when people speak of the weather — 
that he did not notice whether I made him any answer 
or not. There was half a moment of silence, imme- 
diately interrupted by the droning voice of the salaried 
cicerone: 

‘* Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time 
of King Arthur and the Round Table; said to have 
belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le Desirous; ob- 
serve the round hole through the chain-mail in the left 
breast; can’t be accounted for; supposed to have been 
done with a bullet since invention of firearms — per- 
haps maliciously by Cromwell’s soldiers.’’ 

My acquaintance smiled — not a modern smile, but 
one that must have gone out of general use many, many 
centuries ago —and muttered apparently to himself: 

** Wit ye well, Z saw zt done.’’ Then, after a pause, 
added: ‘*I did it myself.’’ 

By the time I had recovered from the electric sur- 
prise of this remark, he was gone. 

All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick 
Arms, steeped in a dream of the olden time, while the 
rain beat upon the windows, and the wind roared about 
the eaves and corners. From time to time I dipped 
into old Sir Thomas Malory’s enchanting book, and 
fed at its rich feast of prodigies and adventures, 
breathed in the fragrance of its obsolete names, and 
dreamed again. Midnight being come at length, I read 
another tale, for a nightcap — this which here follows, 
to wits 


HOW SIR LAUNCELOT SLEW TWO GIANTS, AND MADE A 
CASTLE FREE 


Anon withal came there upon him two great giants, well armed, all 
save the heads, with two horrible clubs in their hands. Sir Launcelot 
put his shield afore him, and put the stroke away of the one giant, and 
with his sword he clave his bead asunder. When his fellow saw that, he 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 13 


ran away as he were wood,* for fear of the horrible strokes, and Sir 
Launcelot after him with all his might, and smote him on the shoulder, and 
clave him to the middle. Then Sir Launcelot went into the hall, and there 
came afore him three score ladies and damsels, and all kneeled unto him, 
and thanked God and him of their deliverance. For, sir, said they, the most 
part of us have been here this seven year their prisoners, and we have 
worked all manner of silk works for our meat, and we are all great gentle- 
women born, and blessed be the time, knight, that ever thou wert born; 
for thou hast done the most worship that ever did knight in the world, that 
will we bear record, and we all pray you to tell us your name, that we may 
tell our friends who delivered us out of prison. Fair damsels, he said, my 
name is Sir Launcelot du Lake. And so he departed from them and be- 
taught them unto God. And then he mounted upon his horse, and rode 
into many strange and wild countries, and through many waters and valleys, 
and evil was he lodged. And at the last by fortune him hapnened against 
a night to come to a fair courtilage, and therein he found an old gentle- 
woman that lodged him with a good-will, and there he had good cheer for 
him and his horse. And when time was, his host brought him into a fair 
garret over the gate to his bed. There Sir Launcelot unarmed him, and 
set his harness by him, and went to bed, and anon he fell on sleep. So, 
soon after there came one on horseback, and knocked at the gate in great 
haste. And when Sir Launcelot heard this he rose up, and looked out at the 
window, and saw by the moonlight three knights come riding after that one 
man, and all three lashed on him at once with swords, and that one knight 
turned on them knightly again and defended him. Truly, said Sir Launcelot, 
yonder one knight shall I help, for it were shame for me to see three knights 
on one, and if he be slain I am partner of his death. And therewith he 
took his harness and went out at a window by a shcet down to the four 
knights, and then Sir Launcelot said on high, Turn you knights unto me, 
and leave your fighting with that knight. And then they all three left Sir 
Kay, and turned unto Sir Launcelot, and there began great battle, for they 
alight all three, and strake many strokes at Sir Launcelot, and assailed him 
on every side. Then Sir Kay dressed him for to have holpen Sir Launcelot. 
Nay, sir, said he, I will none of your help, therefore as ye will have my 
help let me alone with them. Sir Kay for the pleasure of the knight suf- 
fered him for to do his will, and so stood aside. And then anon within 
six strokes Sir Launcelot had stricken them to the earth. 

And then they all three cried, Sir Knight, we yield us unto you as man 


* Demented. 
2 


14 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


of might matchless. As to that, said Sir Launcelot, I will not take your 
yielding unto me, but so that ye yield you unto Sir Kay the seneschal, on 
that covenant I will save your lives and else not. Fair knight, said they, 
that were we loath to do; for as for Sir Kay we chased him hither, and had 
overcome him had ye not been; therefore, to yield us unto him it were no 
reason. Well, as to that, said Sir Launcelot, advise you well, for ye may 
choose whether ye will die or live, for an ye be yielden, it shall be unto Sir 
Kay. Fair knight, then they said, in saving our lives we will do as thou 
commandest us. Then shall ye, said Sir Launcelot, on Whitsunday next 
coming go unto the court of King Arthur, and there shall ye yield you unto 
Queen Guenever, and put you all three in her grace and mercy, and say 
that Sir Kay sent you thither to be her prisoners. On the morn Sir Launce- 
lot arose early, and left Sir Kay sleeping; and Sir Launcelot took Sir Kay’s 
armor and his shield and armed him, and so he went to the stable and took 
his horse, and took his leave of his host, and so he departed. Then soon 
after arose Sir Kay and missed Sir Launcelot; and then he espied that he 
had his armor and his horse. Now by my faith I know well that he will 
grieve some of the court of King Arthur; for on him knights will be bold, 
and deem that it is I, and that will beguile them; and because of his armor 
and shield I am sure I shall ride in peace. And then soon after departed 
Sir Kay, and thanked his host. 


As I laid the book down there was a knock at the 
door, and my stranger came in. I gave him a pipe 
and a chair, and made him welcome. I also comforted 
him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him another one; 
then still another — hoping always for his story. After 
a fourth persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite 
simple and natural way: 


THE STRANGER’S HISTORY 


I aman American. I was born and reared in Hart- 
ford, in the State of Connecticut — anyway, just over 
the river, in the country. So I am a Yankee of the 
Yankees —and practical; yes, and nearly barren of 
sentiment, I suppose — or poetry, in other words. My 
father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor, 
and I was both, along at first. Then I went over to 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 645 


the great arms factory and learned my real trade; 
learned all there was to it; learned to make every- 
thing: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all 
sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make 
anything a body wanted —anything in the world, it 
didn’t make any difference what; and if there wasn’t 
any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, I could 
invent one —and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I 
became head superintendent; had a couple of thou- 
. sand men under me. 

Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight — 
that goes without saying. With a couple of thousand 
rough men under one, one has plenty of that sort of 
amusement. i had, anyway. At last I met my match, 
and I got my dose. It was during a misunderstanding 
conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call 
Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside 
the head that made everything crack, and seemed to 
spring every joint in my skull and made it overlap its 
neighbor. Then the world went out in darkness, and 
I didn’t feel anything more, and didn’t know anything 
at all — at least for a while. 

When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak 
tree, on the grass, with a whole beautiful and broad 
country landscape all to myself—nearly. Not en- 
tirely; for there was a fellow on a horse, looking down 
at me —a fellow fresh out of a picture-book. He was 
in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a 
helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with slits 
in it; and he had a shield, and a sword, and a pro- 
digious spear; and his horse had armor on, too, and a 
steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous 
red and green silk trappings that hung down all around 
him like a bedquilt, nearly to the ground. 

** Fair sir, will ye just?’’ said this fellow. 

** Will I which?’’ 


16 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 
** Will ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or 
for —’’ 
** What are you giving me?’’ I said. ‘* Get along 
back to your circus, or I’ll report you.”’ 

Now what does this man do but fall back a couple 
of hundred yards and then come rushing at me as hard 
as he could tear, with his nail-keg bent down nearly to 
his horse’s neck and his long spear pointed straight 
ahead. I saw he meant business, so I was up the tree 
when he arrived, 

He allowed that I was his property, the captive of 
his spear. There was argument on his side —and the 
bulk of the advantage—so I judged it best to humor 
him. We fixed up an agreement whereby I was to go 
with him and he was not to hurt me. I came down, 
and we started away, I walking by the side of his 
horse. We marched comfortably along, through glades 
and over brooks which I could not remember to have 
seen before —- which puzzled me and made me wonder 
—-and yet we did not come to any circus or sign of 
acircus. SoI gave up the idea of a circus, and con- 
cluded he was from an asylum. But we never came to 
an asylum — so I was up a stump, as you may say. I 
asked him how far we were from Hartford. He said 
he had never heard of the place; which I took to be a 
lie, but allowed it to go at that. At the end of an 
hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a 
winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray 
fortress, with towers and turrets, the first I had ever 
seen out of a picture. 

‘* Bridgeport?’’ said I, pointing. 

‘* Camelot,’’ said he. 


My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness. 
He caught himself nodding, now, and smiled one of 
those pathetic, obsolete smiles of his, and said: 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 17 


“TI find I can’t go on; but come with me, I’ve got 
it all written out, and you can read it if you like.’’ 

In his chamber, he said: ‘* First, I kept a journal; 
then by and by, after years, I took the journal and 
turned it into a book. How long ago that was!’’ 

He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the 
place where I should begin: 

** Begin here -— I’ve already told you what goes be- 
fore.’’ He was steeped in drowsiness by this time. 
As I went out at his door I heard him murmur sleep- 
ily: ‘‘ Give you good den, fair sir.’’ 

I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure. 
The first part of it— the great bulk of it — was parch- 
ment, and yellow with age. I scanned a !eaf particu- 
larly and saw that it was a palimpsest. Under the old 
dim writing of the Yankee historian appeared traces of 
a penmanship which was older and dimmer still — 
Latin words and sentences: fragments from old monk- 
ish legends, evidently. I turned to the place indicated 
by my stranger and began to read — as follows: 


— 
=—S 


SS 
= 


I) ) ig 
hed, MIDS 


a 


ua <a 


Z| 


=) 


\ am 
: Te Yi = 
Nr Ch ZIM a 
119) ce Z Te 


ii) 





CHAPTER IL 


CAMELOT 


s¢f, AMELOT —Camelot,’’ said I to myself. ‘‘I 
don’t seem to remember hearing of it before. 
Name of the asylum, likely.’’ 

It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely 
as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was 
full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, 
and the twittering of birds, and there were no people, 
no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on. 
The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints — 
in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on 
either side in the grass——- wheels that apparently had a 
tire as broad as one’s hand. 

Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, 
with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over her 
shoulders, came along. Around her head she wore a 
hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as sweet an outfit 
as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked indo- 
lently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in 
her innocent face. The circus man paid no attention 
to her; didn’t even seem to see her. And she—she 
was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if 
she was used to his like every day of her life. She 
was going by as indifferently as she might have gone 
by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice 
me, then there was a change! Up went her hands, 


(19) 


20 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped 
open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she was 
the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. 
And there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied 
fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and 
were lost to her view. That she should be startled at 
me instead of at the other man, was too many for me; 
I couldn’t make head or tail of it. And that she 
should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally 
overlook her own merits in that respect, was another 
puzzling thing, and a display of magnanimity, too, 
that was surprising in one so young. There was food 
for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream. 

As we approached the town, signs of life began to 
appear. At intervals we passed a wretched cabin, with 
a thatched roof, and about it small fields and garden 
patches in an indifferent state of cultivation. There 
were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, un- 
combed hair that hung down over their faces and made 
them look like animais. They and the women, as a 
rule, wore a coarse tow-linen robe that came well below 
the knee, and a rude sort of sandal, and many wore 
an iron collar. The small boys and girls were always 
naked; but nobody seemed to know it. All of these 
people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts 
and fetched out their families to gape at me; but no- 
body ever noticed that other fellow, except to make 
him humble salutation and get no response for their 
pains. 

In the town were some substantial windowless houses 
of stone scattered among a wilderness of thatched 
cabins; the streets were mere crooked alleys, and un- 
paved; troops of dogs and nude children played in the 
sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted 
contentedly about, and one of them lay in a reeking 
wallow in the middle of the main thoroughfare and 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 21 


suckled her family. Presently there was a distant blare 
of military music; it came nearer, still nearer, and 
soon a noble cavalcade wound into view, glorious with 
plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners 
and rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spear- 
heads; and through the muck and swine, and naked 
brats, and joyous dogs, and shabby huts, it took its 
gallant way, and in its wake we followed. Followed 
through one winding alley and then another,-~ and 
climbing, always climbing —till at last we gained the 
breezy height where the huge castle stood. There was 
an exchange of bugle blasts; then a parley from the 
walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and morion, 
marched back and ferth with halberd at shoulder 
under flapping banners with the rude figure of a dragon 
aisplayed upon them; and then the great gates were 
flung open, the drawbridge was lowered, and the head 
of the cavalcade swept forward under the frowning 
arches; and we, following, soon found ourselves in a 
great paved court, with towers and turrets stretching 
up into the blue air on all the four sides; and all about 
us the dismount was going on, and much greeting and 
ceremony, and running to and fro, and a gay display 
of moving and intermingling colors, and an altogether 
pleasant stir and noise and confusion. 


CHAPTER II. 
KING ARTHUR'S COURT 


HE moment I gota chance I slipped aside privately 

and touched an ancient common looking man on 

the shoulder and said, in an insinuating, confidential 
way: 

‘* Friend, do me a kindness. Do vou belong to the 
asylum, or are you just bere on a visit or something 
like that?’’ 

He iooked me over stupidly, and said: 

‘* Marry, fair sir, me seemeth —’’ 

‘* That will do,’’ I said; ‘‘I reckon you are a 
patient.’’ 

I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time 
keeping an eye out for any chance passenger in his 
right mind that might come along and give me some 
light. I judged I had found one, presently; so I 
drew him aside and said in his ear: 

““If I could see the head keeper a minute — only 
just a minute —’’ 

‘* Prithee do not let me.’’ 

** Let you what ?’’ 

‘* Hinder me, then, if the word please thee better.”’ 
Then he went on to say he was an under-cook and 
could not stop to gossip, though he would like it 
another time; for it wouid comfort his very liver to 
know where I got my clothes. As he started away he 

(22) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 23 


pointed and said yonder was one who was idle enough 
for my purpose, and was seeking me besides, no 
doubt. This was an airy slim boy in shrimp-colored 
tights that made him look like a forked carrot; the 
rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and 
ruffles; and he had long yellow curls, and wore a 
plumed pink satin cap tilted complacently over his 
ear. By his look, he was good-natured; by his gait, 
he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enough 
to frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling 
and impudent curiosity; said he had come for me, and 
informed me that he was a page. 

*“Go ’long,’’ I said; ‘‘ you ain’t more than a para- 
graph.’’ | 

It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, 
it never phazed him; he didn’t appear to know he was 
hurt. He began to talk and laugh, in happy, thought- 
less, boyish fashion, as we walked along, and made 
himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts 
of questions about myself and about my clothes, but 
never waited for an answer — always chattered straight 
ahead, as if he didn’t know he had asked a question 
and wasn’t expecting any reply, until at last he hap- 
pened to mention that he was born in the beginning of 
the year 513. 

It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped, 
and said, a little faintly: 

** Maybe I didn’t hear you just right. Say it again 
— and say it slow. What year was it?’’ 

€é sea 

**513! You don’t look it! Come, my boy, I am 
a stranger and friendless; be honest and honorable 
with me. Are you in your right mind?’’ 

He said he was. 

** Are these other people in their right minds?’’ 

He said they were. 


24 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘‘ And this isn’t an asylum? I mean, it isn’t a place 
where they cure crazy people?’’ 

He said it wasn’t. 

‘Well, then,’’ I said, ‘‘ either I am a lunatic, or 
something just as awful has happened. Now tell me, 
honest and true, where am [?’’ 

‘*IN KtnG ARTHUR’S COURT.”’ 

I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way 
home, and then said: 

‘*And according to your notions, what year is it now?”’ 

** 528 — nineteenth of June.”’ 

{ felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered: 
‘“I shall never see my friends again-— never, never 
again. They will not be born for more than thirteen 
hundred years yet.’’ 

I seemed to believe the boy, I didn’t know why. 
Something in me seemed to believe him——my con- 
sciousness, as you may say; but my reason didn’t. 
My reason straightway began to clamor; that was 
natural. I didn’t know how to go about satisfying it, 
because I knew that the testimony of men wouldn’t 
serve — my reason would say they were lunatics, and 
throw out their evidence. But all of a sudden I stum- 
bled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the 
only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the 
sixth century occurred on the 2Ist of June, A. D. 528, 
O. S., and began at 3 minutes after 12 noon. I also 
knew that no total eclipse of the sun was due in what 
to me was the present year—z. ¢., 1879. So, if I 
could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the 
heart out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then 
find out for certain whether this boy was telling me the 
truth or not. 

Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now 
shoved this whole problem clear out of my mind till its 
appointed day and hour should come, in order that I 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 25 


might turn all my attention to the circumstances of the 
present moment, and be alert and ready to make the 
most out of them that could be made. One thing ata 
time, is my motto—and just play that thing for all it 
is worth, even if it’s only two pair and a jack. I made 
up my mind to two things: if it was still the nineteenth 
century and I was among lunatics and couldn’t get 
away, I would presently boss that asylum or know the 
reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really 
the sixth century, all right, I didn’t want any softer 
thing: 1 would boss the whole country inside of three 
menths; for I iudged I would have the start of the 
best-educated man in the kingdom by a matter of 
thirteen hundred vears and upward. I’m not a man 
to waste time after my mind’s made up and there’s 
work on hand; so I said to the page: 

** Now, Clarence, my boy —if that might happen to 
be your name —I’ll get you to post me up a little if 
you don’t mind. What is the name of that apparition 
that brought me here?’’ 

“* My master and thine? That is the good knight 
and great lord Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to 
our liege the king.’’ 

** Very good; go on, tell me everything.”’ 

He made a long story of it; but the part that had 
immediate interest for me was this: He said I was Sir 
Kay’s prisoner, and that in the due course of custom 
I would be flung into a dungeon and left there on scant 
commons until my friends ransomed me—unless I 
chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had 
the best show, but I didn’t waste any bother about 
that; time was too precious. The page said, further, 
that dinner was about ended in the great hall by this 
time, and that as soon as the sociability and the heavy 
drinking should begin, Sir Kay would have me in and 
exhibit me before King Arthur and his illustrious 


26 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


knights seated at the Table Round, and would brag 
about his exploit in capturing me, and would probably 
exaggerate the facts a little, but it wouldn’t be good 
form for me to correct him, and not over safe, either; 
and when I was done being exhibited, then ho for the 
dungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come 
and see me every now and then, and cheer me up, and 
help me get word to my friends. 

Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn’t 
do less; and about this time a lackey came to say ! 
was wanted; so Clarence led me in and took me off te 
one side and sat down by me. 

Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interest- 
ing. It was an immense place, and rather naked — 
yes, and full of loud contrasts. It was very, very 
lofty; so lofty that the banners depending from the 
arched beams and girders away up there floated in a 
sort of twilight; there was a stone-railed gallery at 
each end, high up, with musicians in the one, and 
women, clothed in stunning colors, in the other. The 
floor was of big stone flags laid in black and white 
squares, rather battered by age and use, and needing 
repair. As to ornament, there wasn’t any, strictly 
speaking; though on the walls hung some huge tapes- 
tries which were probably taxed as works of art; 
battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like those 
which children cut out of paper or create in ginger- 
bread; with men on them in scale armor whose scales 
are represented by round holes—so that the man’s 
coat looks as if it had been done with a biscuit-punch. 
There was a fireplace big enough to camp in; and its 
projecting sides and hood, of carved and pillared 
stonework, had the look of a cathedral door. Along 
the walls stood men-at-arms, in breastplate and morion, 
with halberds for their only weapon — rigid as statues; 
and that is what they looked like. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 27 


In the middle of this groined and vaulted public 
square was an oaken table which they called the Table 
Round. It was as large as a circus ring; and around 
it sat a great company of men dressed in such various 
and splendid colors that it hurt one’s eyes to look at 
them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, ex- 
cept that whenever one addressed himself directly to 
the king, he lifted his hat a trifle just as he was begin- 
ning his remark. 

Mainly they were drinking— from entire ox horns; 
but a few were still munching bread or gnawing beef 
bones. There was about an average of two dogs to 
one man; and these sat in expectant attitudes till a 
spent bone was flung to them, and then they went for 
it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there 
ensued a fight which filled the prospect with a tumultu- 
ous chaos of plunging heads and bodies and flashing 
tails, and the storm of howlings and barkings deafened 
all speech for the time; but that was no matter, for 
the dog-fight was always a bigger interest anyway; the 
men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet 
on it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched them- 
selves out over their balusters with the same object; 
and all broke into delighted ejaculations from time to 
time. In the end, the winning dog stretched himself 
out comfortably with his bone between his paws, and 
proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease 
the floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing; 
and the rest of the court resumed their previous indus- 
tries and entertainments. 

As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people 
were gracious and courtly; and I noticed that they 
were good and serious listeners when anybody was tell- 
ing anything —I mean in a dog-fightless interval. And 
plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot; 
telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most gentle 

‘ 


28 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


and winning naivety, and ready and willing to listen te 
anybody else’s lie, and believe it, too. It was hard to 
associate them with anything cruel or dreadful; and 
yet they dealt in tales of blood and suffering with a 
guileless relish that made me almost forget to shudder. 

I was not the only prisoner present. There were 
twenty or more. Poor devils, many of them were 
maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightful way; and their 
hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked with black 
and stiffened drenchings of blood. They were suffer- 
ing sharp physical pain, of course; and weariness, and 
hunger and thirst, no doubt; and at least none had 
given them the comfort of a wash, or even the poor 
charity of a lotion for their wounds; yet you never 
heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them show 
any sign of restlessness, or any disposition to com- 
plain. The thought was forced upon me: “* The ras- 
cals — they have served other people so in their day; 
it being their own turn, now, they were not expecting 
any better treatment than this; so their philosophical 
bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intelles- 
tual fortitude, reasoning; it is mere animal training; 
they are white Indians.”’ 


CHAPTER UITI. 


KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND 


AINLY the Round Table talk was monologues—_ 
narrative accounts of the adventures in which 

these prisoners were captured and their friends and 
backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor. 
As a general thing—as far as I could make out— 
these murderous adventures were not forays undertaken 
to avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or sudden 
fallings out; no, as a rule they were simply duels be- 
tween strangers — duels between people who had never 
even been introduced to each other, and between 
whom existed no cause of offense whatever. Many a 
time I had seen a couple of boys, strangers, meet by 
chance, and say simultaneously, ‘*I can lick you,’’ and 
go at it on the spot; but I had always imagined until 
now that that sort of thing belonged to children only, 
and was a sign and mark of childhood; but here were 
these big boobies sticking to it and taking pride in it 
clear up into full age and beyond. Yet there was some- 
thing very engaging about these great simple-hearted 
creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did 
not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so 
to speak, to bait a fish-hook with; but you didn’t seem 
to mind that, after a little, because you soon saw that 
brains were not needed in a society like that, and in- 


3 (20) 


30 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


deed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled its sym- 
metry — perhaps rendered its existence impossible. 

There was a fine manliness observable in almost every 
face; and in some acertain loftiness and sweetness that 
rebuked your belittling criticisms and stilled them. A 
most noble benignity and purity reposed in the counte- 
nance of him they called Sir Galahad, and likewise in the 
king’s also; and there was majesty and greatness in 
the giant frame and high bearing of Sir Launcelot of 
the Lake. 

There was presently an incident which centered the 
general interest upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign 
from a sort of master of ceremonies, six or eight of the 
prisoners rose and came forward in a body and knelt 
on the floor and lifted up their hands toward the ladies’ 
gallery and begged the grace of a word with the queen. 
The most conspicuously situated lady in that massed 
flower-bed of feminine show and finery inclined her 
head by way of assent, and then the spokesman of the 
prisoners delivered himself and his fellows into her 
hands for free pardon, ransom, captivity, or death, as 
she in her good pleasure might elect; and this, as he 
said, he was doing by command of Sir Kay the Senes- 
chal, whose prisoners they were, he having vanquished 
them by his single might and prowess in sturdy conflict 
in the field. 

Surprise and astonishment flashed from face to face 
all over the house; the queen’s gratified smile faded 
out at the name of Sir Kay, and she looked disap- 
pointed; and the page whispered in my ear with an 
accent and manner expressive of extravagant derision— 

**Sir Kay, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dear- 
est, call me a marine! In twice a thousand years shall 
the unholy invention of man labor at odds to beget the 
fellow to this majestic lie !’’ 

Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 31 


Kay. But he was equal to the occasion. He got up 
and played his hand like a major—and took every 
trick. Hesaid he would state the case exactly accord- 
ing to the facts; he would tell the simple straightfor- 
ward tale, without comment of his own; ‘‘ and then,’’ 
said he, ‘‘if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give 
it unto him who is the mightiest man of his hands that 
ever bare shield or strake with sword in the ranks of 
Christian battle — even him that sitteth there!’’ and he 
pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched them; it 
was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told 
how Sir Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time 
gone by, killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword, 
and set a hundred and forty-two captive maidens free; 
and then went further, still seeking adventures, and 
found him (Sir Kay) fighting a desperate fight against 
nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle 
solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine; and 
that night Sir Launcelot rose quietly, and dressed him 
in Sir Kay’s armor and took Sir Kay’s horse and gat 
him away into distant lands, and vanquished sixteen 
knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four in another ; 
and all these and the former nine he made to swear 
that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur’s 
court and yield them to Queen Guenever’s hands as 
captives of Sir Kay the Seneschal, spoil of his knightly 
prowess; and now here were these half dozen, and the 
rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of 
their desperate wounds. 

Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and 
smile, and look embarrassed and happy, and fling fur- 
tive glances at Sir Launcelot that would have got him 
shot in Arkansas, to a dead certainty. 

Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir 
Launcelot; and as for me, I was perfectly amazed, 
that one man, all by himself, should have been able to 


32 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


beat down and capture such battalions of practiced 
fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mock- 
ing featherhead only said: 

‘‘An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of 
sour wine into him, ye had seen the accompt doubled.’’ 

I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw 
the cloud of a deep despondency settle upon his counte- 
nance. I followed the direction of his eye, and saw that 
a very old and white-bearded man, clothed in a flowing 
black gown, had risen and was standing at the table 
upon unsteady legs, and feebly swaying his ancient 
head and surveying the company with his watery and 
wandering eye. The same suffering look that was in 
the page’s face was observable in all the faces around 
—~ the look of dumb creatures who know that they must 
endure and make no moan. 

** Marry, we shall have it again,’’ sighed the boy; 
*“that same old weary tale that he hath told a 
thousand times in the same words, and that he w// tell 
till he dieth, every time he hath gotten his barrel full 
and feeleth his exaggeration-mill a-working. Would 
God I had died or I saw this day !’’ 

** Who is it?’’ 

‘* Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition 
singe him for the weariness he worketh with his one 
tale! But that men fear him for that he hath the 
storms and the lightnings and all the devils that be in 
hell at his beck and call, they would have dug his en- 
trails out these many years ago to get at that tale and 
squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person, 
making believe he is too modest to glorify himself — 
maledictions light upon him, misfortune be his dole! 
Good friend, prithee call me for evensong.’’ 

The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pre- 
tended to go to sleep. The old man began his tale; 
and presently the lad was asleep in reality; so also were 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 33 


the dogs, and the court, the lackeys, and the files of 
men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft 
snoring arose on all sides and supported it like a deep 
and subdued accompaniment of wind instruments. 
Some heads were bowed upon folded arms, some lay 
back with open mouths that issued unconscious music; 
the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats swarmed 
softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered about, 
and made themselves at home everywhere; and one of 
them sat up like a squirrel on the king’s head and held 
a bit of cheese in its hands and nibbled it, and dribbled 
the crumbs in the king’s face with naive and impudent 
irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and restful to the 
weary eye and the jaded spirit. 

This was the cld man’s tale. He said: 

** Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went 
until an hermit that was a good man and a great leech. 
So the hermit searched all his wounds and gave him 
good salves; so the king was there three days, and then 
were his wounds well amended that he might ride and 
go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said, 
I have no sword. No force,* said Merlin, hereby is a 
sword that shall be yoursand I may. So they rode till 
they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and 
broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of 
an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword 
in that hand. Lo, said Merlin, yonder is that sword 
that I spake of. With that they saw a damsel going 
upon the lake. What damsel is that? said Arthur. 
That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within 
that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any 
on earth, and richly beseen, and this damsel will come 
to you anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will 
give you that sword. Anon withal came the damsel 


* No matter. 


34 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her again. 
Damsel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder 
the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were 
mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the 
damsel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift 
when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said 
Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. Well, 
said the damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row your- 
self to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with 
you, and I will ask my gift when I see my time. So 
Sir Arthur and Merlin alight, and tied their horses to 
two trees, and so they went into the ship, and when 
they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur 
took it up by the handles, and took it with him. And 
the arm and the hand went under the water; and so 
they came unto the land and rode forth. And then Sir 
Arthur saw a rich pavilion. What signifieth yonder 
pavilion? It is the knight’s pavilion, said Merlin, 
that ye fought with last, Sir Pellinore, but he is 
out, he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of 
yours, that hight Egglame, and they have fought 
together, but at the last Egglame fled, and elise he had 
been dead, and he hath chased him even to Carlion, 
and we shall meet with him anon in the highway. That 
is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will 
I wage battle with him, and be avenged on him. Sir, 
ye shall not so, said Merlin, for the knight is weary of 
fighting and chasing, so that ye shall have no worship 
to have ado with him; also, he will not lightly be 
matched of one knight living; and therefore it is my 
counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service 
in short time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye 
shall see that day in short space ye shall be right glad 
to give him your sister to wed. When I see him, I will 
do as ye advise me, said Arthur. Then Sir Arthur 
looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 35 


Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or 
the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur, 
Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is 
worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scabbard 
upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so 
sore wounded ; therefore, keep well the scabbard always 
with you. So they rode into Carlion, and by the way 
they met with Sir Pellinore; but Merlin had done such 
a craft that Pellinore saw not Arthur, and he passed by 
without any words. I marvel, said Arthur, that the 
knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin, he saw you 
not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly de- 
parted. So they came unto Carlion, whereof his 
knights were passing glad. And when they heard of 
his adventures they marveled that he would jeopard his 
person so alone. But all men of worship said it was 
merry to be under such a chieftain that would put his 
person in adventure as other poor knights did.”’ 


CHAP: TE Riliva 
SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST 


T seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply 

and beautifully told; but then I had heard it only 

once, and that makes a difference; it was pleasant to 
the others when it was fresh, no doubt. 

Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and 
he soon roused the rest with a practical joke of a suff- 
ciently poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to a 
dog’s tail and turned him loose, and he tore around and 
around the place ina frenzy of fright, with all the other 
dogs bellowing after him and battering and crashing 
against everything that came in their way and making 
altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening 
din and turmoil; at which every man and woman of the 
multitude laughed till the tears flowed, and some fell 
out of their chairs and wallowed on the floor in ecstasy. 
It was just like so many children. Sir Dinadan was so 
proud of his exploit that he could not keep from telling 
over and over again, to weariness, how the immortal 
idea happened to occur to him; and as is the way with 
humorists of his breed, he was still laughing at it after 
everybody else had got through. He was so set up 
that he concluded to make a speech—of course a 
humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old 
played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was 
worse than the minstrels, worse than the clown in the 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 37 


circus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen 
hundred years before I was born, and listen again to 
poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry 
gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years after- 
wards. It about convinced me that there isn’t any such 
thing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at 
these antiquities — but then they always do; I had 
noticed that, centuries later. However, of course the 
scoffer didn’t laugh —I mean the boy. No, he scoffed; 
there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t scoff at. He said 
the most of Sir Dinadan’s jokes were rotten and the rest 
were petrified. Isaid ‘* petrified’’ was good; as I be- 
lieved, myself, that the only right way to classify the 
majestic ages of some of those jokes was by geologic 
periods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blank 
place, for geology hadn’t been invented yet. However, 
I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate 
the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is 
no use to throw a good thing away merely because the 
market isn’t ripe yet. 

Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his his- 
tory-mill with me for fuel. It was time for me to feel 
serious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had en- 
countered me in a far land of barbarians, who all wore 
the same ridiculous garb that I did—a garb that was a 
work of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer 
secure from hurt by human hands. However, he had 
nullified the force of the enchantment by prayer, and 
had killed my thirteen knights in a three hours’ battle, 
and taken me prisoner, sparing my lite in order that so 
strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited to the 
wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He 
spoke of me all the time, in the blandest way, as “* this 
prodigious giant,’’ and “‘this horrible sky-towering 
monster,’’ and ‘‘ this tusked and taloned man-devour- 
ing ogre’’, and everybody took in all this bosh in the 


38 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that 
there was any discrepancy between these watered statis- 
tics and me. He said that in trying to escape from him 
I sprang into the top of a tree two hundred cubits high 
at a single bound, but he dislodged me with a stone the 
size of a cow, which ‘‘all-to brast’’ the most of my 
bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur’s court 
for sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at 
noon on the 21st; and was so little concerned about it 
that he stopped to yawn before he named the date. 

I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was 
hardly enough in my right mind to keep the run of a 
dispute that sprung up as to how I had better be killed, 
the possibility of the killing being doubted by some, 
because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet it 
was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop- 
shops. Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail, 
to wit: many of the terms used in the most matter-of- 
fact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies and 
gentlemen in the land would have made a Comanche 
blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the 
idea. However, I had read ‘‘ Tom Jones,’’ and “‘ Rod- 
erick Random,’’ and other books of that kind, and 
knew that the highest and first ladies and gentlemen in 
England had remained little or no cleaner in their talk, 
and in the morals and conduct which such talk implies, 
clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact clear into our 
own nineteenth century—%in which century, broadly 
speaking, the earliest samples of the real lady and real 
gentleman discoverable in English history—or in 
European history, for that matter—may be said to 
have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, in- 
stead of putting the conversations into the mouths of 
his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for 
themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca 
and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 39 


embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the uncon- 
sciously indelicate all things are delicate. King Ar- 
thur’s people were not aware that they were indecent, 
and I had presence of mind enough not to mention it. 

They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes 
that they were mightily relieved, at last, when old 
Merlin swept the difficulty away for them with a com- 
mon-sense hint. Heasked them why they were so dull 
—why didn’t it occur to them to strip me. In half a 
minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, 
dear, to think of it: I was the only embarrassed person 
there. Everybody discussed me; and did it as uncon- 
cernedly as if I had been a cabbage. Queen Guenever 
was as naively interested as the rest, and said she had 
never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It 
was the only compliment I got — if it was a compliment. 

Finally I was carried off in one direction, and my 
perilous clothes in another. I was shoved into a dark 
and narrow cell in a dungeon, with some scant remnants 
for dinner, some moldy straw for a bed, and no end 
of rats for company. 


CHAPTER V. 
AN INSPIRATION 


WAS so tired that even my fears were not able to 

keep me awake long. 

When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been 
asleep a very long time. My first thought was, ‘* Well, 
what an astonishing dream I’ve had! I reckon I’ve 
waked only just in time to keep from being hanged or 
drowned or burned or something. . . . IJll nap 
again till the whistle blows, and then I’ll go down to 
the arms factory and have it out with Hercules.’’ 

But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains 
and bolts, a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, 
Clarence, stood before me! I gasped with surprise; 
my breath almost got away from me. 

‘*What!’’ I said, ‘‘ you here yet? Go along with 
the rest of the dream! scatter !’’ 

But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and 
fell to making fun of my sorry plight. 

‘All right,’’ I said resignedly, ‘‘let the dream go 
on; I’m in no hurry.”’ 

‘* Prithee what dream ?’’ 

*“What dream? Why, the dream that I am in 
Arthur’s court —a person who never existed; and that 
I am talking to you, who are nothing but a work of the 
imagination.”’ 

** Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you’re to be 
burned to-morrow? Ho-ho— answer me that!’’ 


(40) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 4} 


The shock that went through me was distressing. I 
now began to reason that my situation was in the last 
degree serious, dream or no dream; for I knew by past 
experience of the lifelike intensity of dreams, that to 
be burned to death, even in a dream, would be very far 
from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by 
any means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I 
said beseechingly: 

*"Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I’ve got,— 
for you ave my friend, aren’t you? —don’t fail me; help 
me to devise some way of escaping from this place!” 

** Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, 
the corridors are in guard and keep of men-at-arms.” 

‘*No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? 
Not many, I hope?” 

“*Full a score. One may not hope to escape.” 
After a pause — hesitatingly: ‘and there be other rea- 
sons — and weightier.”’ 

** Other ones? What are they?’’ 

**Well, they say—oh, but I daren’t, indeed 1 
daren’t!’’ 

** Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you 
blench? Why do you tremble so?’’ 

** Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, 
but —’’ 

‘“Come, come, be brave, be a man—speak out, 
there’s a good lad!’’ 

He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other 
way by fear; then he stole to the door and peeped out, 
listening; and finally crept close to me and put his 
mouth to my ear and told me his fearful news in a 
whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension of one 
who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of 
things whose very mention might be freighted with 
death. 

‘* Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this 


42 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


dungeon, and there bides not the man in these king- 
doms that would be desperate enough to essay to cross 
its lines with you! Now God pity me, I have told it! 
Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who 
means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!’’ 

I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had 
for some time; and shouted: 

‘*Merlin has wrought a spell! J/erlin, forsooth! 
That cheap old humbug, that maundering old ass? 
Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh in the world! Why, 
it does seem to me that of all the childish, idiotic, 
chuckle-headed, chicken-livered superstitions that 
ev—oh, damn Merlin!’’ 

But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had 
half finished, and he was like to go out of his mind 
with fright. 

‘*Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any 
moment these walls may crumble upon us if you say 
such things. Oh call them back before it is too late !’’ 

Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and 
set me to thinking. If everybody about here was so 
honestly and sincerely afraid of Merlin’s pretended 
magic as Clarence was, certainly a superior man like 
me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive some way 
to take advantage of sucha state of things. I went 
on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I said: 

‘*Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the 
eye. Do you know why I laughed?’’ 

‘*No— but for our blessed Lady’s sake, do it no 
more.’’ 

‘Well, Pll tell you why I laughed. Because I’ma 
magician myself.’’ 

‘“Thou!’’ The boy recoiled a step, and caught his 
breath, for the thing hit him rather sudden; but the © 
aspect which he took on was very, very respectful. I 
took quick note of that; it indicated that a humbug 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 43 


didn’t need to have a reputation in this asylum; people 
stood ready to take him at his word, without that. I 
resumed, 

** ve know Merlin seven hundred years, and he —’’ 

** Seven hun —’’ 

**Don’t interrupt me. He has died and come alive 
again thirteen times, and traveled under a new name 
every time: Smith, Jones, Robinson, Jackson, Peters, 
Haskins, Merlin—a new alias every time he turns up. 
I knew him in Egypt three hundred years ago; I knew 
him in India five hundred years ago—he is always 
blethering around in my way, everywhere I go; he 
makes me tired. He don’t amount to shucks, as a 
magician; knows some of the old common tricks, 
but has never got beyond the rudiments, and never 
will. He is well enough for the provinces — one-night 
stands and that sort of thing, you know — but dear me, 
he oughtn’t to set up for an expert—anyway not 
where there’s a real artist. Now look here, Clarence, 
I am going to stand your friend, right along, and in re- 
turn you must be mine. I want you to do me a favor. 
I want you to get word to the king that Iam a magician 
myself—and the Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck- 
amuck and head of the tribe, at that; and I want him 
to be made to understand that I am just quietly arrang- 
ing a little calamity here that will make the fur fly in these 
realms if Sir Kay’s project is carried out and any harm 
comes to me. Will you get that to the king for me?’’ 

The poor boy was in such a state that he could 
hardly answer me. It was pitiful to see a creature so 
terrified, so unnerved, so demoralized. But he prom- 
ised everything; and on my side he made me promise 
over and over again that I would remain his friend, and 
never turn against him or cast any enchantments upon 
him. Then he worked his way out, staying himself 


with his hand along the wall, like a sick person. 
4 


44 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Presently this thought occurred to me: how heed- 
less I have been! When the boy gets calm, he will 
wonder why a great magician like me should have 
begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place; 
he will put this and that together, and will see that I 
am a humbug. 

I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour, 
and called myself a great many hard names, meantime. 
But finally it occurred to me all of a sudden that these 
animals didn’t reason; that they never put this and 
that together; that all their talk showed that they 
didn’t know a discrepancy when they saw it. I was at 
rest, then. 

But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes 
on something else to worry about. It occurred to me 
that I had made another blunder: I had sent the boy 
off to alarm his betters with a threat—I intending to 
invent a calamity at my leisure; now the people who are 
the readiest and eagerest and willingest to swallow 
miracles are the very ones who are hungriest to see you 
perform them; suppose I should be called on for a 
sample? Suppose I should be asked to name my 
calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder; I ought to 
have invented my calamity first. ‘‘ What shall I dor 
what can I say, to gain a little time?’’ I was in trouble 
again; in the deepest kind of trouble: . . . 
‘** There’s a footstep !—they’re coming. If I had only 
just a moment to think. . . . Good, I’ve got it. 
I’m all right.’’ 

You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind, 
in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one 
of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump 
once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could 
play it myself, now; and it wouldn’t be any plagiarism, 
either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand 
years ahead of those parties. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 45 


Clarence came in, subdued, distressed, and said: 

**T hasted the message to our liege the king, and 
straightway he had me to his presence. He was 
frighted even to the marrow, and was minded to give 
order for your instant enlargement, and that you be 
clothed in fine raiment and lodged as befitted one so 
great; but then came Merlin and spoiled all; for he 
persuaded the king that you are mad, and know not 
whereof you speak; and said your threat is but foolish- 
ness and idle vaporing. They disputed long, but in the 
end, Merlin, scoffing, said, ‘Wherefore hath he not 
named his brave calamity? Verily it is because he can- 
not.’ This thrust did in a most sudden sort close the 
king’s mouth, and he could offer naught to turn the 
argument; and so, reluctant, and full loth to do you 
the discourtesy, he yet prayeth you to consider his per- 
plexed case, as noting how the matter stands, and name 
the calamity —if so be you have determined the nature 
of it and the time of its coming. Oh, prithee delay 
not; to delay at such a time were to double and treble 
the perils that already compass thee about. Oh, be 
thou wise — name the calamity !’’ 

I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my im- 
pressiveness together, and then said: 

‘* How long have I been shut up in this hole?’’ 

‘Ye were shut up when yesterday was well spent. 
It is 9 of the morning now.’’ 

‘*No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine 
in the morning now! And yet it is the very complex- 
ion of midnight, to a shade. This is the 20th, then?’’ 

** The 20th — yes.”’ 

**And I am to be burned alive to-morrow.’’ The 
boy shuddered. 

**At what hour?’’ 

**At high noon.’’ 

** Now then, I will tell you what-to say.’’ I paused, 

4 


46 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


and stood over that cowering lad a whole minute in 
awful silence; then, in a voice deep, measured, 
charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically 
graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered 
in as sublime and noble a way as ever I did such a 
thing in my life: ‘‘ Go back and tell the king that at 
that hour I will smother the whole world in the dead 
blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he 
shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall 
rot for lack of light and warmth, and the peoples of the 
earth shall famish and die, to the last man!’’ 

I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such 
a collapse. I handed him over to the soldiers, and 
went back. 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE ECLIPSE 


N the stillness and the darkness, realization soon 
began to supplement knowledge. The mere knowl- 
edge of a fact is pale; but when you come to realize 
your fact, it takes on color. It is all the difference be- 
tween hearing of a man being stabbed to the heart, and 
seeing it done. In the stillness and the darkness, the 
knowledge that I was in deadly danger took to itself 
deeper and deeper meaning all the time; a something 
which was realization crept inch by inch through my 
veins and turned me cold. 

But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times 
like these, as soon as a man’s mercury has got down to 
a certain point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies. 
Hope springs up, and cheerfulness along with it, and 
then he is in good shape to do something for himself, 
if anything can be done. When my rally came, it 
came with a bound. I said to myself that my eclipse 
would be sure to save me, and make me the greatest 
man in the kingdom besides; and straightway my 
mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my solici- 
tudes all vanished. I was as happy a man as there 
was in the world. I was even impatient for to- 
morrow to come, I so wanted to gather in that great 
triumph and be the center of all the nation’s wonder 
and reverence. Besides, in a business way it would be 
the making of me; I knew that. 

. Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed 


(47) 


48 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


into the background of my mind. That was the half- 
conviction that when the nature of my proposed 
calamity should be reported to those superstitious 
people, it would have such an effect that they would 
want to compromise. So, by and by when I heard 
footsteps coming, that thought was recalled to me, and 
I said to myself, ‘‘ As sure as anything, it’s the com- 
promise. Well, if it is good, all right, I will accept; 
but if it isn’t, I mean to stand my ground and play my 
hand for all it is worth.’’ 

The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared. 
The leader said: 

** The stake is ready. Come!’’ 

The stake! The strength went out of me, and I 
almost fell down. It is hard to get one’s breath at 
such a time, such lumps come into one’s throat, and 
such gaspings; but as soon as I could speak, I Said: 

‘But this is a mistake—the execution is to- 
morrow.’’ 

‘* Order changed; been set forward a day. Haste 
thee !’’ 

I was lost. There was no help for me. I was 
dazed, stupefied; I had no command over myself, I 
only wandered purposely about, like one out of his 
mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and pulled me 
along with them, out of the cell and along the maze of 
underground corridors, and finally into the fierce glare 
of daylight and the upper world. As we stepped into 
the vast enclosed court of the castle I got a shock; 
for the first thing I saw was the stake, standing in the 
center, and near it the piled fagots anda monk. On 
all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose 
rank above rank, forming sloping terraces that were 
rich with color. The king and the queen sat in their 
thrones, the most conspicuous figures there, of course. 

To note all this, occupied but a second. The next 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 49 


second Clarence had slipped from some place of con- 
cealment and was pouring news into my ear, his eyes 
beaming with triumph and gladness. He said: 

“’Tis through me the change was wrought! And 
main hard have I worked to do it, too. But when I 
revealed to them the calamity in store, and saw how 
mighty was the terror it did engender, then saw I also 
that this was the time to strike! Wherefore I diligently 
pretended, unto this and that and the other one, that 
your power against the sun could not reach its full 
until the morrow; and so if any would save the sun 
and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your 
enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency. 
Odsbodikins, it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent 
invention, but you should have seen them seize it and 
swallow it, in the frenzy of their fright, as it were sal- 
vation sent from heaven; and all the while was I 
laughing in my sleeve the one moment, to see them so 
cheaply deceived, and glorifying God the next, that 
He was content to let the meanest of His creatures be 
His instrument to the saving of thy life. Ah, how 
happy has the matter sped! You will not need to do 
the sun a real hurt—ah, forget not that, on your soul 
forget it not! Only make a little darkness — only the 
littlest little darkness, mind, and cease with that. It 
will be sufficient. They will see that I spoke falsely,— 
being ignorant, as they will fancy—and with the fall- 
ing of the first shadow of that darkness you shall see 
them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and 
make you great! Go to thy triumph, now! But re- 
member — ah, good friend, I implore thee remember 
my supplication, and do the blessed sun no hurt. For 
my sake, thy true friend.’’ 

I choked out some words through my grief and 
misery; as much as to say I would spare the sun; for 
which ie lad’s eyes paid me back with such deep and 


50 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


loving gratitude that I had not the heart to tell him hig 
good-hearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me 
to my death. 

As the soldiers assisted me across the court the still- 
ness was so profound that if I had been blindfold I 
should have supposed I was in a solitude instead of 
walled in by four thousand people. There was not a 
movement perceptible in those masses of humanity ; 
they were as rigid as stone images, and as pale; and 
dread sat upon every countenance. ‘This hush con- 
tinued while I was being chained to the stake; it still 
continued while the fagots were carefully and tediously 
piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs, my body. 
Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible, 
and a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; 
the multitude strained forward, gazing, and parting 
slightly from their seats without knowing it; the monk 
raised his hands above my head, and his eyes toward 
the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in this 
attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then 
stopped. I waited two or three moments; then looked 
up; he was standing there petrified. With a common 
impulse the multitude rose slowly up and stared into 
the sky. I followed their eyes; as sure as guns, there 
was my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling 
through my veins; I was a new man! The rim of 
black spread slowly into the sun’s disk, my heart beat 
higher and higher, and still the assemblage and the 
priest stared into the sky, motionless. I knew that 
this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it 
was, I was ready. I was in one of the most grand 
attitudes I ever struck, with my arm stretched up 
pointing to the sun. It was a noble effect. You 
could see the shudder sweep the mass like a wave. 
Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the 
other : 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 54 


** Apply the torch!’’ 

** I forbid it!’ 

The one was from Merlin, the other from the king. 
Merlin started from his place—to apply the torch 
himself, I judged. I said: 

**Stay where you are. If any man moves— even 
the king—pbefore I give him leave, I will blast him 
with thunder, I will consume him with lightnings !’’ 

The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was 
just expecting they would. Merlin hesitated a moment 
or two, and I was on pins and needles during that little 
while. Then he sat down, and I took a good breath; 
for I knew I was master of the situation now. The 
king said: 

**Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this 
perilous matter, lest disaster follow. It was reported 
to us that your powers could not attain unto their full 
strength until the morrow; but—’’ 

** Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a 
lie? It was a lie.’’ 

That made an immense effect; up went appealing 
hands everywhere, and the king was assailed with a 
storm of supplications that I might be bought off at 
any price, and the calamity stayed. The king was 
eager to comply. He said: 

** Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving 
of my kingdom; but banish this calamity, spare the 
sun !’’ 

My fortune was made. I would have taken him up 
in a minute, but / couldn’t stop an eclipse; the thing 
was out of the question. So I asked time to consider. 
The king said: 

** How long—ah, how long, good sir? Be merci- 
ful; look, it groweth darker, moment by moment 
Prithee how long?’’ 

S Not long. Half an hour — maybe an hour.”’ 


52 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I 
couldn’t shorten up any, for I couldn’t remember 
how long a total eclipse lasts. I was in a puzzled con- 
dition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something was 
wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very un- 
settling. If this wasn’t the one I was after, how was 
I to tell whether this was the sixth century, or nothing 
but a dream? Dear me, if I could only prove it was 
the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy 
was right about the date, and this was surely the 2oth, 
it wasn't the sixth century. I reached for the monk’s 
sleeve, in considerable excitement, and asked him what 
day of the month it was. 

Hang him, he said it was the twenty-first! It made 
me turn cold to hear him. I begged him not to make 
any mistake about it; but he was sure; he knew it 
was the 21st. So, that feather-headed boy had botched 
things again! The time of the day was right for the 
eclipse; I had seen that for myself, in the beginning, 
by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King 
Arthur’s court, and I might as well make the most out 
of it I could. 

The darkness was steadily growing, the people be- 
coming more and more distressed. I now said: 

‘*T have reflected, Sir King. For a lesson, I will 
iet this darkness proceed, and spread night in the 
world; but whether I blot out the sun for good, or 
restore it, shall rest with you. These are the terms, to 
wit: You shall remain king over all your dominions, 
and receive all the glories and honors that belong to 
the kingship; but you shall appoint me your perpetual 
minister and executive, and give me for my services 
one per cent. of such actual increase of revenue over 
and above its present amount as I may succeed in 
creating for the state. If I can’t live on that, I sha’n’t 
ask anybody to give me a lift. Is it satisfactory ?’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 53 


There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of 
the midst of it the king’s voice rose, saying: 

** Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do 
him homage, high and low, rich and poor, for he is 
become the king’s right hand, is clothed with power 
and authority, and his seat is upon the highest step of 
the throne! Now sweep away this creeping night, and 
bring the light and cheer again, that all the-world may 
bless thee.’’ 

But I said: 

‘That a common man should be shamed before 
the world, is nothing; but it were dishonor to the kzxg 
if any that saw his minister naked should not also see 
him delivered from his shame. If I might ask that my 
clothes be brought again —’’ 

*“ They are not meet,’’ the king broke in. ‘‘ Fetch 
raiment of another sort; clothe him like a prince!”’ 

My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they 
were till the eclipse was total, otherwise they would be 
trying again to get me to dismiss the darkness, and of 
course I couldn’t do it. Sending for the clothes 
gained some delay, but not enough. So I had to 
make another excuse. I said it would be but natural 
if the king should change his mind and repent to some 
extent of what he had done under excitement; there- 
fore I would let the darkness grow a while, and if at 
the end of a reasonable time the king had kept his 
mind the same, the darkness should be dismissed. 
Neither the king nor anybody else was satisfied with 
that arrangement, but I had to stick to my point. 

It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, 
while I struggled with those awkward sixth-century 
clothes. It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the 
multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny 
night breezes fan through the place and see the stars 
come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse 


54 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


was total, and I was very glad of it, but everybody 
else was in misery; which was quite natural. I said: 

‘* The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms.’”’ 
Then I lifted up my hands — stood just so a moment — 
then I said, with the most awful solemnity: ‘‘ Let the 
enchantment dissolve and pass harmless away !’’ 

There was no response, for a moment, in that deep 
darkness and that graveyard hush. But when the 
silver rim of the sun pushed itself out, a moment or 
two later, the assemblage broke loose with a vast shout 
and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me 
with blessings and gratitude; and Clarence was not the 
last of the wash, to be sure. 


CHAPTER VII. 
MERLIN’S TOWER 


NASMUCH as I was now the second personage in 
the Kingdom, as far as political power and author- 

ity were concerned, much was made of me. My 
raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold, 
and by consequence was very showy, also uncomfort- 
able. But habit would soon reconcile me to my clothes; 
I was aware of that. I was given the choicest suite of 
apartments in the castle, after the king’s. They were 
aglow with loud-colored silken hangings, but the stone 
floors had nothing but rushes on them for a carpet, 
and they were misfit rushes at that, being not all of 
one breed. As for conveniences, properly speaking, 
there weren’t any. I mean /:#tle conveniences; it is 
the little conveniences that make the real comfort of 
life. The big oaken chairs, graced with rude carvings, 
were well enough, but that was the stopping place. 
There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass — ex- 
cept a metal one, about as powerful as a pail of water. 
And not a chromo. I had been used to chromos for 
years, and I saw now that without my suspecting it a 
passion for art had got worked into the fabric of my 
being, and was become a part of me. It made me 
homesick to look around over this proud and gaudy 
but heartless barrenness and remember that in our house 


(55) 


56 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


in East Hartford, all unpretending as it was, you couldn’t 
go into aroom but you would find an insurance-chromo, 
or at least a three-color God-Bless-Our-Home over the 
door; and in the parlor we had nine. But here, even 
in my grand room of state, there wasn’t anything in 
the nature of a picture except a thing the size of a 
bedquilt, which was either woven or knitted (it had 
darned places in it), and nothing in it was the right 
color or the right shape; and as for proportions, even 
Raphael himself couldn’t have botched them more 
formidably, after all his practice on those nightmares 
they call his ‘‘ celebrated Hampton Court cartoons.’’ 
Raphael was a bird. We had several of his chromos; 
one was his ‘* Miraculous Draught of Fishes,’’ where 
he puts in a miracle of his own — puts three men into 
a canoe which wouldn’t have held a dog without up- 
setting. J always admired to study R.’s art, it was so 
fresh and unconventional. 

There wasn’t even a bell or a speaking-tube in the 
castle. I had a great many servants, and those that 
were on duty lolled in the anteroom; and when I 
wanted one of them I had to go and call for him. 
There was no gas, there were no candles; a bronze 
dish half full of boarding-house butter with a blazing 
rag floating in it was the thing that produced what was 
regarded as light. <A lot of these hung along the walls 
and modified the dark, just toned it down enough to 
make it dismal. If you went out at night, your ser- 
vants carried torches. There were no books, pens, 
paper or ink, and no glass in the openings they be- 
lieved to be windows. It is a little thing — glass is — 
until it is absent, then it becomes a big thing. But 
perhaps the worst of all was, that there wasn’t any 
sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco. I saw that I was just 
another Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited 
island, with no society but some more or less tame 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 57 


animals, and if I wanted to make life bearable I must 
do as he did—jinvent, contrive, create, reorganize 
things; set brain and hand to work, and keep them 
busy. Well, that was in my line. 

One thing troubled me along at first— the immense 
interest which people took in me. Apparently the 
whole nation wanted a look at me. It soon transpired 
that the eclipse had scared the British world almost to 
death; that while it lasted the whole country, from one 
end to the other, was in a pitiable state of panic, and 
the churches, hermitages, and monkeries overflowed 
with praying and weeping poor creatures who thought 
the end of the world was come. Then had followed 
the news that the producer of this awful event was a 
stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur’s court; that he 
could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was 
just going to do it when his mercy was purchased, and 
he then dissolved his enchantments, and was now 
recognized and honored as the man who had by his 
unaided might saved the globe from destruction and 
its peoples from extinction. Now if you consider that 
everybody believed that, and not only believed it, but 
never even dreamed of doubting it, you will easily 
understand that there was not a person in all Britain 
that would not have walked fifty miles to get a sight of 
me. Of course I was all the talk— all other subjects 
were dropped; even the king became suddenly a per- 
son of minor interest and notoriety. Within twenty- 
four hours the delegations began to arrive, and from 
that time onward for a fortnight they kept coming. 
The village was crowded, and all the countryside. Il 
had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to 
these reverent and awe-stricken multitudes. It came 
to be a great burden, as to time and trouble, but of 
course it was at the same time compensatingly agree- 
able to be so celebrated and such a center of homage. 


58 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


It turned Brer Merlin green with envy and spite, which 
was a great satisfaction to me. But there was one 
thing I couldn’t understand — nobody had asked for 
an autograph. I spoke to Clarence about it. By 
George! I had to explain to him what it was. Then 
he said nobody in the country could read or write but 
a few dozen priests. Land! think of that. 

There was another thing that troubled me a little. 
Those multitudes presently began to agitate for another 
miracle. That was natural. To be able to carry back 
to their far homes the boast that they had seen the 
man who could command the sun, riding in the 
heavens, and be obeyed, would make them great in 
the eyes of their neighbors, and envied by them all; 
but to be able to also say they had seen him work a 
miracle themselves—-why, people would come a dis- 
tance to see them. The pressure got to be pretty 
strong. There was going to be an eclipse’ of the 
moon, and I knew the date and hour, but it was too 
far away. Two years. I would have given a good 
deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when 
there was a big market for it. It seemed a great pity 
to have it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time 
when a body wouldn’t have any use for it, as like as 
not. If it had been booked for only a month away, I 
could have sold it short; but, as matters stood, I 
couldn’t seem to cipher out any way to make it do me 
any good, sol gave up trying. Next, Clarence found 
that old Merlin was making himself busy on the sly 
among those people. He was spreading a report that 
I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn’t accom- 
modate the people with a miracle was because I 
couldn’t. I saw that I must do something. I pres- 
ently thought out a plan. 

By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into 
prison—the same cell I had occupied myself. Then 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 59 


I gave public notice by herald and trumpet that I 
should be busy with affairs of state for a fortnight, but 
about the end of that time I would take a moment’s 
leisure and blow up Merlin’s stone tower by fires from 
heaven; in the meantime, whoso listened to evil re- 
ports about me, let him beware. Furthermore, I 
would perform but this one miracle at this time, and 
no more; if it failed to satisfy and any murmured, I 
would turn the murmurers into horses, and make them 
useful. Quiet ensued. 

I took Clarence into my confidence, to a certain 
degree, and we went to work privately. I told him 
that this was a sort of miracle that required a trifle of 
preparation, and that it would be sudden death to ever 
talk about these preparations to anybody. ‘That made 
his mouth safe enough. Clandestinely we made a few 
bushels of first-rate blasting powder, and I superin- 
tended my armorers while they constructed a lightning- 
rod and some wires. This old stone tower was very 
massive — and rather ruinous, too, for it was Roman, 
and four hundred years old. Yes, and handsome, 
after a rude fashion, and clothed with ivy from base to 
summit, as with a shirt of scale mail. It stood ona 
lonely eminence, in good view from the castle, and 
about half a mile away. 

Working by night, we stowed the powder in the 
tower —-dug stones out, on the inside, and buried the 
powder in the walls themselves, which were fifteen feet 
thick at the base. We put in a peck at a time, ina 
dozen places. We could have blown up the Tower of 
London with these charges. When the thirteenth night 
was come we put up our lightning-rod, bedded it in 
one of the batches of powder, and ran wires from it to 
the other batches. Everybody had shunned that 
locality from the day of my proclamation, but on the 
morning of the fourteenth I thought best to warn the 


60 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


people, through the heralds, to keep clear away—a 
quarter of a mile away. Then added, by command, 
that at some time during the twenty-four hours I 
would consummate the miracle, but would first give a 
brief notice; by flags on the castle towers if in the 
daytime, by torch-baskets in the same places if at 
night. 

Thunder-showers had been tolerably frequent of late, 
and I was not much afraid of a failure; still, I shouldn’t 
have cared for a delay of a day or two; I should have 
explained that I was busy with affairs of state yet, and 
the people must wait. 

Of course, we had a blazing sunny day — almost the 
first one without a cloud for three weeks; things always 
happen so. I kept secluded, and watched the weather. 
Clarence dropped in from time to time and said the 
public excitement was growing and growing all the 
time, and the whole country filling up with human 
masses as far as one could see from the battlements. 
At last the wind sprang up and a cloud appeared —in 
the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. Fora 
little while I watched that distant cloud spread and 
blacken, then I judged it was time for me to appear. 
I ordered the torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liber- 
ated and sent to me. A quarter of an hour later I 
ascended the parapet and there found the king and the 
court assembled and gazing off in the darkness toward 
Merlin’s Tower. Already the darkness was so heavy 
that one could not see far; these people and the old 
turrets, being partly in deep shadow and partly in the 
red glow from the great torch-baskets overhead, made 
a good deal of a picture. 

Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said: 

**'You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done 
you any harm, and latterly you have been trying to 
injure my professional reputation. Therefore I am 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 61 


going to call down fire and blow up your tower, but 
it is only fair to give you a chance; now if you think 
you can break my enchantments and ward off the fires, 
step to the bat, it’s your innings.’’ 

**I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not.’’ 

He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the 
roof, and burnt a pinch of powder in it, which sent up 
a small cloud of aromatic smoke, whereat everybody 
fell back and began to cross themselves and get un- 
comfortable. Then he began to mutter and make 
passes in the air with his hands. He worked himself 
up slowly and gradually into a sort of frenzy, and got 
to thrashing around with his arms like the sails of a 
windmill. By this time the storm had about reached 
us; the gusts of wind were flaring the torches and 
making the shadows swash about, the first heavy drops 
of rain were falling, the world abroad was black as 
pitch, the lightning began to wink fitfully. Of course, 
my rod would be loading itself now. In fact, things 
were imminent. So I said: 

‘You have had time enough. I have given you 
every advantage, and not interfered. It is plain your 
magic is weak. It is only fair that I begin now.”’ 

I made about three passes in the air, and then there 
was an awful crash and that old tower leaped into the 
sky in chunks, along with a vast volcanic fountain of 
fire that turned night to noonday, and showed a thou- 
sand acres of human beings groveling on the ground in 
a general collapse of consternation. Well, it rained 
mortar and masonry the rest of the week. This was 
the report; but probably the facts would have modi- 
fied it. 

It was an effective miracle. The great bothersome 
temporary population vanished. There were a good 
many thousand tracks in the mud the next morning, 
but they were all outward bound. If I had advertised 

5 


62 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


another miracle I couldn’t have raised an audience 
with a sheriff. 

Merlin’s stock was flat. The king wanted to stop 
his wages; he even wanted to banish him, but I inter- 
fered. I said he would be useful to work the weather, 
and attend to small matters like that, and I would give 
him a lift now and then when his poor little parlor- 
magic soured on him. There wasn’t a rag of his tower 
left, but I had the government rebuild it for him, and 
advised him to take boarders; but he was too high- 
toned for that. And as for being grateful, he never 
even said thank you. He wasa rather hard lot, take 
him how you might; but then you couldn’t fairly ex- 
- pect a man to be sweet that had been set back so. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE BOSS 


O be vested with enormous authority is a fine 
thing; but to have the on-looking world consent 
to it is a finer. The tower episode solidified my 
power, and made it impregnable. If any were per- 
chance disposed to be jealous and critical before that, 
they experienced a change of heart, now. There was 
not any one in the kingdom who would have considered 
it good judgment to meddle with my matters. 

I was fast getting adjusted to my situation and cir- 
cumstances. For a time, I used to wake up, mornings, 
and smile at my ‘“‘dream,’’ and listen for the Colt’s 
factory whistle; but that sort of thing played itself 
out, gradually, and at last I was fully able to realize 
that I was actually living in the sixth century, and in 
Arthur’s court, not a lunatic asylum. After that, I 
was just as much at home in that century as I could 
have been in any other; and as for preference, I 
wouldn’t have traded it for the twentieth. Look at 
the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains, 
pluck, and enterprise to sailin and grow up with the 
country. The grandest field that ever was; and all my 
own; not a competitor; not a man who wasn’t a baby 
te me in acquirements and capacities; whereas, what 
would I amount to in the twentieth century? I should 
be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could 


(633 


64 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


drag a seine down street any day and catch a hundred 
better men than myself. 

What a jump I had made! I couldn’t keep from 
thinking about it, and contemplating it, just as one 
does who has struck oil. There was nothing back of 
me that could approach it, unless it might be Joseph’s 
case; and Joseph’s only approached it, it didn’t equal 
it, quite. For it stands to reason that as Joseph’s 
splendid financial ingenuities advantaged nobody but 
the king, the general public must have regarded him 
with a good deal of disfavor, whereas I had done my 
entire public a kindness in sparing the sun, and was 
popular by reason of it. 

I was no shadow of a king; I was the substance; 
the king himself was the shadow. My power was 
colossal; and it was not a mere name, as such things 
have generally been, it was the genuine article. I 
- stood here, at the very spring and source of the second 
great period of the world’s history; and could see the 
trickling stream of that history gather and deepen and 
broaden, and roll its mighty tides down the far 
centuries; and I could note the upspringing of adven- 
turers like myself in the shelter of its long array of 
thrones: De Montforts, Gavestons, Mortimers, Villier- 
ses; the war-making, campaign-directing wantons of 
France, and Charles the Second’s_ scepter-wielding 
drabs; but nowhere in the procession was my full- 
sized fellow visible. I was a Unique; and glad to 
know that that fact could not be dislodged or chal- 
lenged for thirteen centuries and a half, for sure. 

Yes, in power I was equal to the king. At the same 
time there was another power that was a trifle stronger 
than both of us put together. That was the Church. 
I do not wish to disguise that fact. I couldn’t, if I 
wanted to. But never mind about that, now; it will 
show up, in its proper place, later on. It didn’t cause 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 65 


me any trouble in the beginning—at least any of 
consequence. 

Well, it was a curious country, and full of interest. 
And the people! They were the quaintest and sim- 
plest and trustingest race; why, they were nothing but 
rabbits. It was pitiful for a person born in a whole- 
some free atmosphere to listen to their humble and 
hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and 
Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion 
to love and honor king and Church and noble than a 
slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to 
love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, 
dear me, azy kind of royalty, howsoever modified, 
any kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly 
an insult; but if you are born and brought up under 
that sort of arrangement you probably never find it 
out for yourself, and don’t believe it when somebody 
else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed 
of his race to think of the sort of froth that has 
always occupied its thrones without shadow of right 
or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always 
figured as its aristocracies—a company of monarchs 
and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only 
poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their 
own exertions. 

The most of King Arthur’s British nation were 
slaves, pure and simple, and bore that name, and wore 
the iron collar on their necks; and the rest were slaves 
in fact, but without the name; they imagined them- 
selves men and freemen, and called themselves so. 
The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world 
for one object, and one only: to grovel before king 
and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood 
for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they 
might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might 
be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and 

o 


66 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from pay- 
ing them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading 
language and postures of adulation that they might 
walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this 
world. And for all this, the thanks they got were 
cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they 
that they took even this sort of attention as an honor. 

Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting 
to observe and examine. I had mine, the king and his 
people had theirs. In both cases they flowed in ruts 
worn deep by time and habit, and the man who should 
have proposed to divert them by reason and argument 
would have had a long contract on his hands. For 
instance, those people had inherited the idea that all 
men without title and a long pedigree, whether they 
had great natural gifts and acquirements or hadn’t, 
were creatures of no more consideration than so many 
animals, bugs, insects; whereas I had inherited the 
idea that human daws who can consent to masquerade 
in the peacock-shams of inherited dignities and un- 
earned titles, are of no good but to be laughed at. 
The way I was looked upon was odd, but it was 
natural. You know how the keeper and the public 
regard the elephant in the menagerie: well, that is the 
idea. They are full of admiration of his vast bulk and 
his prodigious strength; they speak with pride of the 
fact that he can do a hundred marvels which are far 
and away beyond their own powers; and they speak 
with the same pride of the fact that in his wrath he is 
able to drive a thousand men before him. But does 
that make him one of them? No; the raggedest 
tramp in the pit would smile at the idea. He couldn’t 
comprehend it; couldn’t take it in; couldn’t in any 
remote way conceive of it. Well, to the king, the 
nobles, and all the nation, down to the very slaves 
and tramps, I was just that kind of an clephant, and 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 67 


nothing more. I was admired, also feared; but it 
was as an animal is admired and feared. The animal 
is not reverenced, neither was I; I was not even re- 
spected. I had no pedigree, no inherited title; so 
in the king’s and nobles’ eyes I was mere dirt; the 
people regarded me with wonder and awe, but there 
was no reverence mixed with it; through the force of 
inherited ideas they were not able to conceive of any- 
thing being entitled to that except pedigree and lord- 
ship. There you see the hand of that awful power, 
the Roman Catholic Church. In two or three little 
centuries it had converted a nation of men to a nation 
of worms. Before the day of the Church’s supremacy 
in the world, men were men, and held their heads up, 
and had a man’s pride and spirit and independence; 
and what of greatness and position a person got, he 
got mainly by achievement, not by birth. But then 
the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind; 
and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one 
way te skin a cat—or a nation; she invented “‘ divine 
right of kings,’’ and propped it all around, brick by 
brick, with the Beatitudes—wrenching them from 
their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one; 
she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience 
to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached 
(to the commoner) meekness under insult; preached 
(still to the commoner, always to the commoner) pa- 
tience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance under op- 
pression; and she introduced heritable ranks and 
aristocracies, and taught all the Christian populations 
of the earth to bow down to them and worship them. 
Even down to my birth-century that poison was still in 
the blood of Christendom, and the best of English com- 
moners was still content to see his inferiors impudently 
continuing to hold a number of positions, such as lord- 
ships and the throne, to which the grotesque laws of 
BR 


68 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


his country did not allow him to aspire; in fact, he 
was not merely contented with this strange condition 
of things, he was even able to persuade himself that 
he was proud of it. It seems to show that there isn’t 
anything you can’t stand, if you are only born and 
bred to it. Of course that taint, that reverence for 
rank and title, had been in our American blood, too — 
I know that; but when I left America it had disap- 
peared — at least to all intents and purposes. The 
remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses. 
When a disease has worked its way down to that level, 
it may fairly be said to be out of the system. 

But to return to my anomalous position in King 
Arthur’s kingdom. Here I was, a giant among pig- 
mies, a man among children, a master intelligence 
among intellectual moles: by all rational measurement 
the one and only actually great man in that whole 
British world; and yet there and then, just as in the 
remote England of my birth-time, the sheep-witted 
earl who could claim long descent from a king’s leman, 
acquired at second-hand from the slums of London, 
was a better man than I was. Such a personage was 
fawned upon in Arthur’s realm and reverently looked 
up to by everybody, even though his dispositions were 
as mean as his intelligence, and his morals as base as 
his lineage. There were times when 4e could sit down 
in the king’s presence, but I couldn’t. I could have 
got a title easily enough, and that would have raised 
me a large step in everybody’s eyes; even in the 
king’s, the giver of it. But I didn’t ask for it; and I 
declined it when it was offered. I couldn’t have enjoyed 
such a thing with my notions; and it wouldn’t have 
been fair, anyway, because as far back as I could go, 
_ our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister. I. 
couldn’t have felt really and satisfactorily fine and 
proud and set-up over any title except one that should 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 69 


come from the nation itself, the only legitimate source; 
and such an one I hoped to win; and in the course of 
years of honest and honorable endeavor, IJ did win it 
and did wear it with a high and clean pride. This 
title fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one 
day, in a village, was caught up as a happy thought 
and tossed from mouth to mouth with a laugh and an 
affirmative vote; in ten days it had swept the kingdom, 
and was become as familiar as the king’s name. I 
was never known by any other designation afterward, 
whether in the nation’s talk or in grave debate upon 
matters of state at the council-board of the sovereign. 
This title, translated into modern speech, would be 
THE BOSS. Elected by the nation. That suited me. 
And it was a pretty high title. There were very few 
THE’S, and I was one of them. If you spoke of the 
duke, or the earl, or the bishop, how could anybody 
tell which one you meant? But if you spoke of The 
King or The Queen or The Boss, it was different. 

Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him 
— respected the office; at least respected it as much as 
I was capable of respecting any unearned supremacy; 
but as mex I looked down upon him and his nobles — 
privately. And he and they liked me, and respected 
my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham 
title, they looked down upon me—and were not par- 
ticularly private about it, either. I didn’t charge for 
my opinion about them, and they didn’t charge for 
their opinion about me: the account was square, the 
books balanced, everybody was satisfied. 


CHAPTER IX. 
THE TOURNAMENT 


HEY were always having grand tournaments there 
at Camelot; and very stirring and picturesque 
and ridiculous human bull-fights they were, too, but 
just a little wearisome to the practical mind. How- 
ever, I was generally on hand—for two reasons: a 
man must not hold himself aloof from the things which 
his friends and his community have at heart if he 
would be liked — especially as a statesman; and both 
as business man and statesman I wanted to study the 
tournament and see if I couldn’t invent an improve- 
ment on it. That reminds me to remark, in passing, 
that the very first official thing I did, in my adminis- 
tration — and it was on the very first day of it, too— 
was to start a patent office; for I knew that a country 
without a patent office and good patent laws was just 
a crab, and couldn’t travel any way but sideways or 
backways. 

Things ran along, a tournament nearly every week; 
and now and then the boys used to want me to take a 
hand—I mean Sir Launcelot and the rest—but I 
said I would by and by; no hurry yet, and too much 
government machinery to oil up and set to rights and 
start a-going. 

We had one toufnament which was continued from 
day to day during more than a week, and as many as 


(70) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 71 


five hundred knights took part in it, from first to last. 
They were weeks gathering. They came on horseback 
from everywhere; from the very ends of the country, 
and even from beyond the sea; and many brought 
ladies, and all brought squires and troops of servants. 
It was a most gaudy and gorgeous crowd, as to cos- 
tumery, and very characteristic of the country and the 
time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocent inde- 
cencies of language, and happy-hearted indifference to 
morals. It was fight or look on, all day and every 
day; and sing, gamble, dance, carouse half the night 
every night. They had a most noble good time. You 
never saw such people. Those banks of beautiful 
ladies, shining in their barbaric splendors, would see 
a knight sprawl from his horse in the lists with a lance- 
shaft the thickness of your ankle clean through him 
and the blood spouting, and instead of fainting they 
would clap their hands and crowd each other for a 
better view; only sometimes one would dive into her 
handkerchief, and look ostentatiously broken-hearted, 
and then you could lay two to one that there was a 
scandal there somewhere and she was afraid the public 
hadn’t found it out. 

The noise at night would have been annoying to me 
ordinarily, but I didn’t mind it in the present circum- 
stances, because it kept me from hearing the quacks 
detaching legs and arms from the day’s cripples. 
They ruined an uncommon good old cross-cut saw for 
me, and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass. 
And as for my axe—well, I made up my mind that 
the next time I lent an axe to a surgeon I would pick 
my century. 

I not only watched this tournament from day to day, 
but detailed an intelligent priest from my Department 
of Public Morals and Agriculture, and ordered him to 
report it; for it was my purpose by and by, when I 


72 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


should have gotten the people along far enough, to 
start a newspaper. The first thing you want in a new 
country, is a patent office; then work up your school 
system; and after that, out with your paper. A 
newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them, but no 
matter, it’s hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and 
don’t you forget it. You can’t resurrect a dead nation 
without it; there isn’t any way. So I wanted to 
sample things, and be finding out what sort of reporter- 
material I might be able to rake together out of the 
sixth century when I should come to need it. 

Well, the priest did very well, considering. He got 
in all the details, and that is a good thing ina local 
item: you see, he had kept books for the undertaker- 
department of his church when he was younger, 
and there, you know, the money’s in the details; the 
more details, the more swag: bearers, mutes, candles, 
prayers — everything counts; and if the bereaved don’t 
buy prayers enough you mark up your candles with a 
forked pencil, and your bill shows up all right. And 
he had a good knack at getting in the complimentary 
thing here and there about a knight that was likely to 
advertise —no, I mean a knight that had influence; 
and he also had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his 
time he had kept door for a pious hermit who lived in 
a sty and worked miracles, | 

Of course this novice’s report lacked whoop and 
crash and lurid description, and therefore wanted the 
true ring; but its antique wording was quaint and 
sweet and simple, and full of the fragrances and flavors 
of the time, and these little merits made up in a meas- 
ure for its more important lacks. Here is an extract 
from it: 

Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum, knights of the 
castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and Sir Tor, and Sir Tor smote down 
Sir Grummore Grummorsum to the earth. Then came Sir Carados of the 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 73 


#olorous tower, and Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and there encount- 
ered with them Sir Percivale de Galis and Sir Lamorak de Galis, that were 
two brethren, and there encountered Sir Percivale with Sir Carados, and 
either brake their spears unto their hands, and then Sir Turquine with Sir 
Lamorak, and either of them smote down other, horse and all, to the earth, 
and either parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir Arnold, 
and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Brandiles and 
Sir Kay, and these four knights encountered mightily, and brake their 
spears to their hands. Then came Sir Pertolope from the castle, and there 
encountered with him Sir Lionel, and there Sir Pertolope the green knight 
smote down Sir Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot. All this was marked by 
noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names. Then Sir Bleobaris 
brake his spear upon Sir Gareth, but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the 
earth. When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him, and Sir 
Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud gat a spear to avenge 
his brother, and in the same wise Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan 
and his brother La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramor le Desirous, and Sir 
Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one spear. When King 
Agwisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth fare so he marvelled what he might 
be, that one time seemed green, and another time, at his again coming, he 
seemed blue. And thus at every course that he rode to and fro he 
changed his color, so that there might neither king nor knight have ready 
cognizance of him. Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered 
with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from his horse, saddle and 
all. And then came King Carados of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him 
down horse and man. And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the 
land of Gore. And then there came in Sir Bagdemagus, and Sir Gareth 
smote him down horse and man to the earth. And Bagdemagus’s son 
Meliganus brake a spear upon Sir Gareth mightily and knightly. And 
then Sir Galahault the noble prince cried on high, Knight with the many 
colors, well hast thou justed; now make thee ready that I may just with 
thee. Sir Gareth heard him, and he gat a great spear, and so they encoun- 
tered together, and there the prince brake his spear; but Sir Gareth smote 
him upon the left side of the helm, that he reeled here and there, and he 
had fallen down had not his men recovered him, ‘Truly, said King Arthur, 
that knight with the many colors is a good knight, Wherefore the king 
called unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him to encounter with that 
knight. Sir, said Launcelot, I may as well find in my heart for to forbear 
him at this time, for he hath had travail enough this day, and when a good 


74 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


knight doth so well upon some day, it is no good knight’s part to let him of 
his worship, and, namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great labour; 
for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his quarrel is here this day, and per- 
adventure he is best beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see well 
he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great deeds, and therefore, said 
Sir Launcelot, as for me, this day he shall have the honour; though it lay 
in my power to put him from it, I would not. 


There was an unpleasant little episode that day, 
which for reasons of state I struck out of my priest’s 
report. You will have noticed that Garry was doing 
some great fighting in the engagement. When I say 
Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet 
name for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection 
for him, and that was the case. But it was a private 
pet name only, and never spoken aloud to any one, 
much less to him; being a noble, he would not have 
endured a familiarity like that from me. Well, to pro- 
ceed: I sat in the private box set apart for me as the 
king’s minister. While Sir Dinadan was waiting for 
his turn to enter the lists, he came in there and sat 
down and began to talk; for he was always making up 
to me, because I was a stranger and he liked to have a 
fresh market for his jokes, the most of them having 
reached that stage of wear where the teller has to do 
the laughing himself while the other person looks sick. 
I had always responded to his efforts as well as I 
could, and felt a very deep and real kindness for him, 
too, for the reason that if by malice of fate he knew 
the one particular anecdote which I had heard oftenest 
and had most hated and most loathed all my life, he 
had at least spared it me. It was one which I had 
heard attributed to every humorous person who had 
ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to 
Artemus Ward. It was about a humorous lecturer 
who flooded an ignorant audience with the killingest 
jokes for an hour and never got a laugh; and then 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 75 


when he was leaving, some gray simpletons wrung him 
gratefully by the hand and said it had been the funniest 
thing they had ever heard, and “‘ it was all they could 
do to keep from laughin’ right out in meetin’.’’ That 
anecdote never saw the day that it was worth the telling; 
and yet I had sat under the telling of it hundreds and 
thousands and millions and billions of times, and cried 
and cursed ali the way through. Then who can hope 
to know what my feelings were, to hear this armor- 
plated ass start in on it again, in the murky twilight of 
tradition, before the dawn of history, while even 
Lactantius might be referred to as ‘‘ the late Lactan- 
tius,’’ and the Crusades wouldn’t be born for five 
hundred years yet? Just as he finished, the call-boy 
came; so, haw-hawing like a demon, he went rattling 
and clanking out like a crate of loose castings, and I 
knew nothing more. It was some minutes before I 
came to, and then I opened my eyes just in time to 
see Sir Gareth fetch him an awful welt, and I uncon- 
sciously out with the prayer, ‘‘I hope to gracious he’s 
killed !’’ But by ill-luck, before I had got half through 
with the words, Sir Gareth crashed into Sir Sagramor 
le Desirous and sent him thundering over his horse’s 
crupper, and Sir Sagramor caught my remark and 
thought I meant it for zm. 

Well, whenever one of those people got a thing into 
his head, there was no getting it out again. I knew 
that, so I saved my breath, and offered no explana- 
tions. As soon as Sir Sagramor got well, he notified 
me that there was a little account to settle between us, 
and he named a day three or four years in the future; 
place of settlement, the lists where the offense had 
been given. I said I would be ready when he got 
back. You see, he was going for the Holy Grail. 
The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and 
then. It was a several years’ cruise. They always 

. 


76 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


put in the long absence snooping around, in the most 
conscientious way, though none of them had any idea 
where the Holy Grail really was, and I don’t think any 
of them actually expected to find it, or would have 
known what to do with it if he ad run across it. 
You see, it was just the Northwest Passage of that 
day, as you may say; that was all. Every year expe- 
ditions went out holy grailing, and next year relief 
expeditions went out to hunt for them. There was 
worlds of reputation in it, but no money. Why, they 
actually wanted me to put in! Well, I should smile. 


CPL Ek Fo Ruy 


BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION 


HE Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and 
of course it was a good deal discussed, for such 
things interested the boys. The king thought I ought 
now to set forth in quest of adventures, so that I 
might gain renown and be the more worthy to meet 
Sir Sagramor when the several years should have rolled 
away. I excused myself for the present; I said it 
would take me three or four years yet to get things 
well fixed up and going smoothly; then I should be 
ready; all the chances were that at the end of that 
time Sir Sagramor would still be out grailing, so no 
valuable time would be lost by the postponement; I 
should then have been in office six or seven years, 
and I believed my system and machinery would be so 
well developed that I could take a holiday without its 
working any harm. 

I was pretty well satisfied with what I had already 
accomplished. In various quiet nooks and corners I 
had the beginnings of all sorts of industries under way 
—nuclei of future vast factories, the iron and steel 
missionaries of my future civilization. In these were 
gathered together the brightest young minds I could 
find, and I kept agents out raking the country for 
more, all the time. I was training a crowd of ignorant 
folk into experts — experts in every sort of handiwork 

6 . (77) 


78 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


and scientific calling. These nurseries of mine went 
smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their ob- 
scure country retreats, for nobody was allowed to 
come into their precincts without a special permit — 
for I was afraid of the Church. 

I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sunday- 
schools the first thing; as a result, I now had an ad- 
mirable system of graded schools in full blast in those 
places, and also a complete variety of Protestant con- 
gregations all in a prosperous and growing condition. 
Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted 
to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But I 
confined public religious teaching to the churches and 
the Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in my 
other educational buildings. I could have given my 
own sect the preference and made everybody a Presby- 
terian without any trouble, but that would have been 
to affront a law of human nature: spiritual wants and 
instincts are as various in the human family as are 
physical appetites, complexions, and features, and a 
man is only at his best, morally, when he is equipped 
with the religious garment whose color and shape and 
size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spirit- 
ual complexion, angularities, and stature of the indi- 
vidual who wears it; and, besides, I was afraid of a 
united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest 
conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into 
selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means 
death to human liberty and paralysis to human 
thought. 

All mines were royal property, and there were a 
good many of them. They had formerly been worked 
as savages always work mines— holes grubbed in the 
earth and the mineral brought up in sacks of hide by 
hand, at the rate of a ton a day; but I had begun to 
put the mining on a scientific basis as early as I could. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 79 


Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when Sir 
Sagramor’s challenge struck me. 

Four years rolled by—and then! Well, you would 
never imagine it in the world. Unlimited power zs the 
ideal thing when it is in safe hands. The despotism of 
heaven is the one absolutely perfect government. An 
earthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect earthly 
government, if the conditions were the same, namely, 
the despot the perfectest individual of the human race, 
and his lease of life perpetual. But asa perishable 
perfect man must die, and leave his despotism in the 
hands of an imperfect successor, an earthly despotism 
is not merely a bad form of government, it is the worst 
form that is possible. 

My works showed what a despot could do with the 
resources of a kingdom at his command. Unsuspected 
by this dark land, I had the civilization of the nine- 
teenth century booming under its very nose! It was 
fenced away from the public view, but there it was, a 
gigantic and unassailable fact—and to be heard from, 
yet, if I lived and had luck. There it was, as sure a 
fact and as substantial a fact as any serene volcano, 
standing innocent with its smokeless summit in the 
blue sky and giving no sign of the rising hell in its 
bowels. My schools and churches were children four 
years before; they were grown-up now; my shops of 
that day were vast factories now; where I had a dozen 
trained men then, I had a thousand now; where I had 
one brilliant expert then, I had fifty now. I stood 
with my hand on the cock, so to speak, ready to turn 
it on and flood the midnight world with light at any 
moment. But Iwas not going to do the thing in that 
sudden way. It was not my policy. The people 
could not have stood it; and, moreover, I should have 
had the Established Roman Catholic Church on my 
back in a minute. 


80 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


No, I had been going cautiously all the while. I 
had had confidential agents trickling through the 
country some time, whose office was to undermine 
knighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw a 
little at this and that and the other superstition, and so 
prepare the way gradually for a better order of things. 
I was turning on my light one-candle-power at a time, 
and meant to continue to do so. 

I had scattered some branch schools secretly about 
the kingdom, and they were doing very well. I meant 
to work this racket more and more, as time wore on, if 
nothing occurred to frighten me. One of my deepest 
secrets was my West Point— my military academy. I 
kept that most jealously out of sight; and I did the 
same with my naval academy which I had established 
at a remote seaport. Both were prospering to my 
satisfaction. 

Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my head 
executive, my right hand. He was a darling; he was 
equal to anything; there wasn’t anything he couldn’t 
turn his hand to. Of late I had been training him for 
journalism, for the time seemed about right for a start 
in the newspaper line; nothing big, but just a small 
weekly for experimental circulation in my civilization- 
nurseries. He took to it like a duck; there was an 
editor concealed in him, sure. Already he had doubled 
himself in one way; he talked sixth century and wrote 
nineteenth. His journalistic style was climbing, stead- 
ily; it was already up to the back settlement Alabama 
mark, and couldn’t be told from the editorial output of 
that region either by matter or flavor. 

We had another large departure on hand, too. This 
was a telegraph and a telephone; our first venture in 
this line. These wires were for private service only, 
as yet, and must be kept private until a riper day 
should come. We had a gang of men on the road, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 81 


working mainly by night. They were stringing ground 
wires; we were afraid to put up poles, for they would 
attract too much inquiry. Ground wires were good 
enough, in both instances, for my wires were protected 
by an insulation of my own invention which was per- 
fect. My men had orders to strike across country, 
avoiding roads, and establishing connection with any 
considerable towns whose lights betrayed their pres- 
ence, and leaving experts in charge. Nobody could 
tell you how to find any place in the kingdom, for 
nobody ever went intentionally to any place, but only 
struck it by accident in his wanderings, and then gener- 
ally left it without thinking to inquire what its name 
was. At one time and another we had sent out topo- 
graphical expeditions to survey and map the kingdom, 
but the priests had always interfered and raised trouble. 
So we had given the thing up, for the present; it 
would be poor wisdom to antagonize the Church. 

As for the general condition of the country, it was 
as it had been when I arrived in it, to all intents and 
purposes. I had made changes, but they were neces- 
sarily slight, and they were not noticeable. Thus far, 
I had not even meddled with taxation, outside of the 
taxes which provided the royal revenues. I had 
systematized those, and put the service on an effective 
and righteous basis. Asa result, these revenues were 
already quadrupled, and yet the burden was so much 
more equably distributed than before, that all the king- 
dom felt a sense of relief, and the praises of my ad- 
ministration were hearty and general. 

Personally, I struck an interruption, now, but I did 
not mind it, it could not have happened at a better 
time. Earlier it could have annoyed me, but now 
everything was in good hands and swimming right 
along. The king had reminded me several times, of 
late, that the postponement I had asked for, four years 

6 


82 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


before, had about run out now. It was a hint that I 
ought to be starting out to seek adventures and get up 
a reputation of a size to make me worthy of the honor 
of breaking a lance with Sir Sagramor, who was still 
out grailing, but was being hunted for by various relief 
expeditions, and might be found any year, now. So 
you see I was expecting this interruption; it did not 
take me by surprise. 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES. 


HERE never was such a country for wandering 
liars; and they were of both sexes. Hardly a 
month went by without one of these tramps arriving; 
and generally loaded with a tale about some princess 
or other wanting help to get her out of some far-away 
castle where she was held in captivity by a lawless 
scoundrel, usually a giant. Now you would think that 
the first thing the king would do after listening to such 
a novelette from an entire stranger, would be to ask 
for credentials— yes, and a pointer or two as to 
locality of castle, best route to it, and so on. But 
nobody ever thought of so simple and common-sense 
a thing at that. No, everybody swallowed these peo- 
ple’s lies whole, and never asked a question of any 
sort or about anything. Well, one day when I was 
not around, one of these people came along — it was a 
she one, this time— and told a tale of the usual pat- 
tern. Her mistress was a captive in a vast and gloomy 
castle, along with- forty-four other young and beautiful 
girls, pretty much all of them princesses; they had 
been languishing in that cruel captivity for twenty-six 
years; the masters of the castle were three stupendous 
brothers, each with four arms and one eye —the eye in 
the center of the forehead, and as big asafruit. Sort of 
fruit not mentioned; their usual slovenliness in statistics. 
Would you believe it? The king and the whole 


B (83) 


84 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Round Table were in raptures over this preposterous 
opportunity for adventure. Every knight of the Table 
jumped for the chance, and begged for it; but to their 
vexation and chagrin the king conferred it upon me, 
who had not asked for it at all. 

By an effort, I contained my joy when Clarence 
brought me the news. But he —he could not contain 
his. His mouth gushed delight and gratitude in a 
steady discharge — delight in my good fortune, grati- 
tude to the king for this splendid mark of his favor for 
me. He could keep neither his legs nor his body still, 
but pirouetted about the place in an airy ecstasy of 
happiness. 

On my side, I could have cursed the kindness that 
conferred upon me this benefaction, but I kept my 
vexation under the surface for policy’s sake, and did 
what I could to let on to be glad. Indeed, I sazd I 
was glad. And in a way it was true; I was as glad as 
a person is when he is scalped. 

Well, one must make the best of things, and not 
waste time with useless fretting, but get down to busi- 
ness and see what can be done. In all lies there is 
wheat among the chaff; I must get at the wheat in this 
case: sol sent for the girl and she came. She was a 
comely enough creature, and soft and modest, but, if 
signs went for anything, she didn’t know as much as a 
lady’s watch. I said: 

** My dear, have you been questioned as to particu- 
lars?’’ 

She said she hadn’t. 

*“ Well, I didn’t expect you had, but I thought I 
would ask, to make sure; it’s the way I’ve been raised. 
Now you mustn’t take it unkindly if I remind you that 
as we don’t know you, we must go a little slow. You 
may be all right, of course, and we’ll hope that you 
are; but to take it for granted isn’t business. You 

F 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 85 


understand that. I’m obliged to ask you a few ques- 
tions; just answer up fair and square, and don’t be 
afraid. Where do you live, when you are at home?’’ 

**In the land of Moder, fair sir.’’ 

“Land of Moder. I don’t remember hearing of it 
before. Parents living?’’ 

** As to that, I know not if they be yet on live, sith 
it is many years that I have lain shut up in the castle.’’ 

** Your name, please?’’ 

**T hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, an it 
please you.’’ 

** Do you know anybody here who can identify you ?’’ 

** That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither 
now for the first time.’’ : 

** Have you brought any letters — any documents — 
any proofs that you are trustworthy and truthful?’’ 

**Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have 
I not a tongue, and cannot I say all that myself?’’ 

**But your saying it, you know, and somebody 
else’s saying it, is different.’’ 

** Different? How might that be? I fear me I do 
not understand.’’ 

“Don’t understand? Land of —why, you see— 
you see—why, great Scott, can’t you understand a 
little thing like that? Can’t you understand the 
difference between your— why do you look so inno- 
cent and idiotic! ’’ 

**TI? In truth I know not, but an it were the will of 
God.”’ 

*“Yes, yes, I reckon that’s about the size of it. 
Don’t mind my seeming excited; I’m not. Let us 
change the subject. Now as to this castle, with forty- 
five princesses in it, and three ogres at the head of it, 
tell me — where is this harem?’’ 

** Harem ?”’ 

** The castle, you understand; where is the castle?’’ 


86 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


**Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, 
and lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues.”’ 

** How many ?’’ 

‘** Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they 
are so many, and do so lap the one upon the other, 
and being made all in the same image and tincted with 
the same color, one may not know the one league from 
its fellow, nor how to count them except they be taken 
apart, and ye wit well it were God’s work to do that, 
being not within man’s capacity; for ye will note—’’ 

** Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance; 
whereabouts does the castle lie? What's the direction 
from here?’’ 

‘*Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from 
here; by reason that the road lieth not straight, but 
turneth evermore; wherefore the direction of its place 
abideth not, but is some time under the one sky and 
anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that it is 
in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that 
the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by 
the space of half a circle, and this marvel happing 
again and yet again and still again, it will grieve you 
that you had thought by vanities of the mind to thwart 
and bring to naught the will of Him that giveth nota 
castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth Him, 
and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all 
castles and all directions thereunto vanish out of the 
earth, leaving the places wherein they tarried desolate 
and vacant, so warning His creatures that where He 
will He will, and where He will not He ~’’ 

‘* Oh, that’s all right, that’s all right, give us a rest; 
never mind about the direction, Aang the direction — I 
beg pardon, I beg a thousand pardons, I am not well 
to-day; pay no attention when I soliloquize, it is an 
old habit, an old, bad habit, and hard to get rid of 
when one's digestion is all disordered with eating food 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 87 


that was raised forever and ever before he was born; 
good land! a man can’t keep his functions regular on 
spring chickens thirteen hundred years old. But come 
—never mind about that; let’s——have you got such 
a thing as a map of that region about your? Nowa 
good map —’’ 

““Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of 
late the unbelievers have brought from over the great 
seas, which, being boiled in oil, and an onion and salt 
added thereto, doth—’’ 

““What, a map? What are you talking about? 
Don’t you know what a map is? There, there, never 
mind, don’t explain, I hate explanations; they fog a 
thing up so that you can’t tell anything about it. Run 
along, dear; good-day; show her the way, Clarence.’’ 

Oh, well, it was reasonably plain, now, why these 
donkeys didn’t prospect these liars for details. It 
may be that this girl had a fact in her somewhere, but 
I don’t believe you could have sluiced it out witha 
hydraulic; nor got it with the earlier forms of blasting, 
even; it was a case for dynamite. Why, she was a 
perfect ass; and yet the king and his knights had 
listened to her as if she had been a leaf out of the 
gospel. It kind of sizes up the whole party. And 
think of the simple ways of this court: this wandering 
wench hadn’t any more trouble to get access to the 
king in his palace than she would have had to get into 
the poorhouse in my day and country. In fact, he 
was glad to see her, glad to hear her tale; with that 
adventure of hers to offer, she was as welcome as a 
corpse is to a coroner. 

Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence 
“came back, I remarked upon the barren result of my 
efforts with the girl; hadn’t got hold of a single point 
that could help me to find the castle. The youth 
looked a little surprised, or puzzled, or something, and 


88 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


intimated that he had been wondering to himself what 
I had wanted to ask the girl all those questions for. 

‘‘ Why, great guns,’’ I said, ‘‘ don’t I want to find 
the castle? And how else would I go about it?’’ 

‘*La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer 
that, I ween. She will go with thee. They always 
do. She will ride with thee.’’ 

‘** Ride with me? Nonsense!’’ 

‘*But of a truth she will. She will ride with thee. 
Thou shalt see.’’ 

‘What? She browse around the hills and scour the 
woods with me — alone — and I as good as engaged to 
be married? Why, it’s scandalous. Think how it 
would look.’’ 

My, the dear face that rose before me! The boy 
was eager to know all about this tender matter. I 
swore him to secresy and then whispered her name — 
** Puss Flanagan.’’ He looked disappointed, and said 
he didn’t remember the countess. How natural it was 
for the little courtier to give her a rank. He asked me 
where she lived. 

‘*In East Har—’’ I came to myself and stopped, 
a little confused; then I said, ‘‘ Never mind, now; I'll 
tell you some time.’’ 

And might he see her? Would I let him see her 
some day? 

It was but a little thing to promise —thirteen hun- 
dred years or so—and he so eager; so I said Yes. 
But I sighed; I couldn’t help it. And yet there was 
no sense in sighing, for she wasn’t born yet. But that 
is the way we are made: we don’t reason, where we 
feel; we just feel. 

My expedition was all the talk that day and that 
night, and the boys were very good to me, and made 
much of me, and seemed to have forgotten their vexa- 
tion and disappointment, and come to be as anxious 





A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 89 


for me to hive those ogres and set those ripe old vir- 
gins loose as if it were themselves that had the con- 
tract. Well, they were good children— but just chil- 
dren, that is all. And they gave me no end of points 
about how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them 
in; and they told me all sorts of charms against en- 
chantments, and gave me salves and other rubbish to 
put on my wounds. But it never occurred to one of 
them to reflect that if I was such a wonderful necro- 
mancer as I was pretending to be, I ought not to need 
salves or instructions, or charms against enchantments, 
and, least of all, arms and armor, on a foray of any 
kind — even against fire-spouting dragons, and devils 
hot from perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as 
these I was after, these commonplace ogres of the 
back settlements. 

I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, 
for that was the usual way; but I had the demon’s 
own time with my armor, and this delayed me a little. 
It is troublesome to get into, and there is so much 
detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around 
your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the 
cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of 
chain mail— these are made of small steel links woven 
together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you 
toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps into a pile like 
a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly 
the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night 
shirt, yet plenty used it for that— tax collectors, and 
reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title, 
and those sorts of people; then you put on your shoes 
—flat-boats roofed over with interleaving bands of 
steel—and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. 
Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your 
cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and 
your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then 


go A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


you hitch onto the. breastplate the half-petticoat of 
broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in 
front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, 
and isn’t any real improvement on an inverted coal 
scuttle, either for looks or for wear, or to wipe your 
hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you 
put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms, your iron 
gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto 
your head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to 
hang over the back of your.neck —and there you are, 
snug as a candle ina candle-mould. This is no time 
to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that 
is a nut that isn’t worth the cracking, there is so little 
of the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison 
with the shell. 

The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. 
Just as we finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I 
saw that as like as not I hadn’t chosen the most con- 
venient outfit for a long trip. How stately he looked; 
and tall and broad and grand. He had on his head a 
conical steel casque that only came down to his ears, 
and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended 
down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all 
the rest of him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain 
mail, trousers and all. But pretty much all of him was 
hidden under his outside garment, which of course was 
of chain mail, as I said, and hung straight from his 
shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to the 
bottom, both before and behind, was divided, so that 
he could ride and let the skirts hang down on each 
side. He was going grailing, and it was just the outfit 
for it, too. I would have given a good deal for that 
ulster, but it was too late now to be fooling around. 
The sun was just up, the king and the court were all 
on hand to see me off and wish me luck; so it wouldn’t 
be etiquette for me to tarry. You don’t get on your 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court O1 


horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would get dis- 
appointed. They carry you out, just as they carry a 
sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and 
help get you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; 
and all the while you do feel so strange and stuffy and 
like somebody else-—like somebody that has been mar- 
ried on a sudden, or struck by lightning, or something 
like that, and hasn’t quite fetched around yet, and is sort 
of numb, and can’t just get his bearings. Then they 
stood up the mast they called a spear, in its socket by 
my left foot, and I gripped it with my hand; lastly 
they hung my shield around my neck, and I was all 
complete and ready to up anchor and get to sea. 
Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and 
a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. 
There was nothing more to do now, but for that 
damsel to get up behind me on a pillion, which she 
did, and put an arm or so around me to hold on. 

And so we started, and everybody gave us a good- 
bye and waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And 
everybody we met, going down the hill and through 
the village was respectful to us, except some shabby 
little boys on the outskirts. They said: 

**Oh, what a guy!’’ And hove clods at us. 

In my experience boys are the same in all ages. 
They don’t respect anything, they don’t care for any- 
thing or anybody. They say ‘‘ Go up, baldhead’’ to 
the prophet going his unoffending way in the gray of 
antiquity; they sass me in the holy ‘gloom of the 
Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same way 
in Buchanan’s administration; I remember, because I 
was there and helped. The prophet had his bears and 
settled with his boys; and I wanted to get down and 
settle with mine, but it wouldn’t answer, because I 
couldn’t have got up again. I hate a country without 
a derrick. 

7 


CHAPTER VXATL 


SLOW TORTURE 


TRAIGHT off, we were in the country. It was 
most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes 
in the early cool morning in the first freshness of 
autumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lving 
spread out below, with streams winding through them, 
and island groves of trees here and there, and huge 
lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of 
shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges of 
hills, blue with haze, stretching away in billowy per- 
spective to the horizon, with at wide intervals a dim 
fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we 
knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural lawns 
sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the 
cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we 
dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light 
that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves 
overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of 
runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and 
making a sort of whispering music, comfortable to hear; 
and at times we left the world behind and entered into 
the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest, 
where furtive wild things whisked and scurried by and 
were gone before you could even get your eye on the 
place where the noise was; and where only the earliest 
birds were turning out and getting to business with a 
song here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious far- 
(92) 


— wie 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 93 


off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree trunk 
away somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses of 
the woods. And by and by out we would swing again 
into the glare. | 

About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung 
out into the glare—#it was along there somewhere, a 
couple of hours or so after sun-up — it wasn’t as pleas- 
ant as ithad been. It was beginning to get hot. This 
was quite noticeable. We had a very long pull, after 
that, without any shade. Now it is curious how 
progressively little frets grow and multiply after they 
once get a start. Things which I didn’t mind at all, 
at first, I began to mind now—and more and more, 
too, allthe time. The first ten or fifteen times I wanted 
my handkerchief I didn’t seem to care; I got along, 
and said never mind, it isn’t any matter, and dropped 
it outof my mind. But now it was different; I wanted 
it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and 
no rest; I couldn’t get it out of my mind; and so at 
last I lost my temper and said hang a man that would 
make a suit of armor without any pockets in it. You 
see I had my handkerchief in my helmet; and some 
other things; but it was that kind of a helmet that you 
can’t take off by yourself. That hadn’t occurred to 
me when I put it there; and in fact I didn’t know it. 
I supposed it would be particularly convenient there. 
And so now, the thought of its being there, so handy 
and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the 
worse and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that you 
can’t get is the thing that you want, mainly; every one 
has noticed that. Well, it took my mind off from every- 
thing else; took it clear off, and centered it in my 
helmet; and mile after mile, there it stayed, imagining 
the handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it 
was bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keep 
trickling down into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it. 

ee | 


94 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


It seems like a little thing, on paper, but it was nota 
little thing at all; it was the most real kind of misery. 
I would not say it if it was notso. I made up my 
mind that I would carry along a reticule next time, let 
it look how it might, and people say what they would. 
Of course these iron dudes of the Round Table would 
think it was scandalous, and maybe raise Sheol about 
it, but as for me, give me comfort first, and style after- 
wards. So we jogged along, and now and then we 
struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in 
clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze 
and cry; and of course I said things I oughtn’t to 
have said, I don’t deny that. I am not better than 
others. 

We couldn’t seem to meet anybody in this lone- 
some Britain, not even an ogre; and, in the mood I 
was in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, an 
ogre with a handkerchief. Most knights would have 
thought of nothing but getting his armor; but so I 
got his bandanna, he could keep his hardware, for all 
of me. 

Meantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in there. 
You see, the sun was beating down and warming up the 
iron more and more all the time. Well, when you are 
hot, that way, every little thing irritates you. When I 
trotted, I rattled like a crate of dishes, and that annoyed 
me; and moreover I couldn’t seem to stand that 
shield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now 
around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my 
joints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that 
a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn’t create any breeze 
at that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; and 
besides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron set- 
tled down on you and the more and more tons you 
seemed to weigh every minute. And you had to be 
always changing hands, and passing your spear over to’ 











HOW REFRESHING IT WAS 


-—~ 





A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 95 


the other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to hold 
it long at a time. 

Well, you know, when you perspire that way, in 
rivers, there comes a time when you— when you— 
ywell, when you itch. You are inside, your hands are 
outside; so there you are; nothing but iron between. 
It is not a light thing, let it sound as it may. First 
it is one place; then another; then some more; and 
it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the ter- 
ritory is all occupied, and nobody can imagine what 
you feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And when it 
had got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I could 
not stand anything more, a fly got in through the bars 
and settled on my nose, and the bars were stuck and 
wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t get the visor up; and I 
could only shake my head, which was baking hot by 
this time, and the fly — well, you know how a fly acts 
when he has got a certainty— he only minded the 
shaking enough to change from nose to lip, and lip to 
ear, and buzz and buzz all around in there, and keep 
on lighting and biting, in a way that a person, already 
so distressed as I was, simply could not stand. So I 
gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and 
relieve me of it. Then she emptied the conveniences 
out of it and fetched it full of water, and I drank and 
then stood up, and she poured the rest down inside the 
armor. Onecannot think how refreshing it was. She 
continued to fetch and pour until I was well soaked 
and thoroughly comfortable. - 

It was good to have a rest— and peace. But nothing 
is quite perfect in this life, at any time. I had madea 
pipe a while back, and also some pretty fair tobacco; 
not the real thing, but what some of the Indians use: 
the inside bark of the willow, dried. These comforts 
had been in the helmet, and now I had them again, but 
no matches, 


96 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact 
was borne in upon my understanding — that we were 
weather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount his 
horse without help and plenty of it Sandy was not 
enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait 
until somebody should come along. Waiting, in 
silence, would have been agreeable enough, for I was 
full of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it a 
chance to work. I wanted to try and think out how it 
was that rational or even half-rational men could ever 
have learned to wear armor, considering its incon- 
veniences; and how they had managed te keep up such 
a fashion for generations when it was plain that what I 
had suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the days 
of their lives. I wanted to think that out; and more- 
over I wanted to think out some way to reform this 
evil and persuade the people to let the foolish fashion 
die out; but thinking was out of the question in the 
circumstances. You couldn’t think, where Sandy 
was. 

She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, 
but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill, 
and made your head sore like the drays and wagons in 
acity. If she had had a cork she would have been a 
comfort. But you can’t cork that kind; they would 
die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think 
something would surely happen to her works, by and 
by; but no, they never got out of order; and she 
never had to slack up for words. She could grind, 
and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week, and never 
stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was 
just nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any 
more than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite ; 
I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, 
jabber; but just as good as she could be. I hadn’t 
minded her mill that morning, on account of having 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 97 


that hornets’ nest of other troubles; but more than 
once in the afternoon I had to say: 

*“Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all 
the domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to im- 


porting it by to-morrow, and it’s a low enough treasury 
without that.’’ 


CHAPTER XIII. 


FREEMEN 


ES, it is strange how little a while at a time a per- 
son can be contented. Only a little while back, 
when I was riding and suffering, what a heaven this 
peace, this rest, this sweet serenity in this secluded 
shady nook by this purling stream would have seemed, 
where I could keep perfectly comfortable all the time 
by pouring a dipper of water into my armor now and 
then; yet already I was getting dissatisfied; partly be- 
cause I could not light my pipe—for, although I had 
long ago started a match factory, I had forgotten to 
bring matches with me—and partly because we had 
nothing to eat. Here was another illustration of the 
childlike improvidence of this age and people. A man 
in armor always trusted to chance for his food ona 
journey, and would have been scandalized at the idea 
of hanging a basket of sandwiches on his spear. There 
was probably not a knight of all the Round Table com- 
bination who would not rather have died than been 
caught carrying such a thing as that on his flagstaff. 
And yet there could not be anything more sensible. 
It had been my intention to smuggle a couple of sand- 
wiches into my helmet, but I was interrupted in the act, 
and had to make an excuse and lay them aside, and a 
dog got them. 
Night approached, and with it a storm. The dark- 
ness came on fast. We must camp, of course. I 


(98 ) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 99 


found a good shelter for the demoiselle under a rock, 
and went off and found another for myself. But I was 
obliged to remain in my armor, because I could not get 
it off by myself and yet could not allow Alisande to 
help, because it would have seemed so like undressing 
before folk. It would not have amounted to that in 
reality, because I had clothes on underneath; but the 
prejudices of one’s breeding are not gotten rid of just 
at a jump, and I knew that when it came to stripping 
off that bob-tailed iron petticoat I should be embarrassed. 

With the storm came a change of weather; and the 
stronger the wind blew, and the wilder the rain lashed 
around, the colder and colder it got. Pretty soon, 
various kinds of bugs and ants and worms and things 
began to flock in out of the wet and crawl down in- 
side my armor to get warm; and while some of them 
behaved well enough, and snuggled up amongst my 
clothes and got quiet, the majority were of a restless, 
uncomfortable sort, and never stayed still, but went 
on prowling and hunting for they did not know what; 
especially the ants, which went tickling along in 
wearisome procession from one end of me to the other 
by the hour, and are a kind of creatures which I 
never wish to sleep with again. It would be my advice 
to persons situated in this way, to not roll or thrash 
around, because this excites the interest of all the 
different sorts of animals and makes every last one of 
them want to turn out and see what is going on, and 
this makes things worse than they were before, and of 
course makes you objurgate harder, too, if you can. 
Still, if one did not roll and thrash around he would 
die; so perhaps it is as well to do one way as the other ; 
there is no real choice. Even after I was frozen solid 
I could still distinguish that tickling, just as a corpse 
does when he is taking electric treatment. I said J 
would never wear armor after this trip. 

@ 


100 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


All those trying hours whilst I was frozen and yet 
was in a living fire, as you may say, on account of that 
swarm of crawlers, that same unanswerable question 
kept circling and circling through my tired head: How 
do people stand this miserable armor? How have they 
managed to stand it all these generations? How can 
they sleep at night for dreading the tortures of next 
day? 

When the morning came at last, I was in a bad 
enough plight: seedy, drowsy, fagged, from want of 
sleep; weary from thrashing around, famished from 
long fasting; pining for a bath, and to get rid of the 
animals; and crippled with rheumatism. And how 
had it fared with the nobly born, the titled aristocrat, 
the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise? Why, she was 
as fresh as a squirrel; she had slept like the dead; and 
as for a bath, probably neither she nor any other noble 
in the land had ever had one, and so she was not 
missing it. Measured by modern standards, they were 
merely modified savages, those people. This noble 
lady showed no impatience to get to breakfast — and 
that smacks of the savage, too. On their journeys 
those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to 
bear them; and also how to freight up against probable 
fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and 
tie anaconda. As like as not, Sandy was loaded for a 
three-day stretch. 

We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limp- 
ing along behind. In half an hour we came upona 
group of ragged poor creatures who had assembled to 
mend the thing which was regarded asaroad. They 
were as humble as animals to me; and when I pro- 
posed to breakfast with them, they were so flattered, so 
overwhelmed by this extraordinary condescension of 
mine that at first they were not able to believe that I 
was in earnest. My lady put up her scornful lip and 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 101 


withdrew to one side; she said in their hearing that she 
would as soon think of eating with the other cattle —a 
remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely be- 
cause it referred to them, and not because it insulted or 
offended them, for it didn’t. And yet they were not 
slaves, not chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase 
they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free popula- 
tion of the country were of just their class and degree: 
small ‘‘independent’’ farmers, artisans, etc.; which 
is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; 
they were about all of it that was useful, or worth sav- 
ing, or really respectworthy, and to subtract them would 
have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some 
dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility 
and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with 
the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of 
use or value in any rationally constructed world. And 
yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, in- 
stead of being in the tail of the procession where it be- 
longed, was marching head up and banners flying, at the 
other end of it; had elected itself to be the Nation, 
and these innumerable clams had permitted it so long 
that they had come at last to accept it as a truth; ani 
not only that, but to believe it right and as it shoul 
be. The priests had told their fathers and themselves 
that this ironical state of things was ordained of God; 
and so, not reflecting upon how unlike God it would 
be to amuse himself with sarcasms, and especially such 
poor transparent ones as this, they had dropped the 
matter there and become respectfully quiet. 

The talk of these meek people had a strange enough 
sound in a formerly American ear, They were free- 
men, but they could not leave the estates of their lord 
or their bishop without his permission; they could not 
prepare their own bread, but must have their corn 
ground and their bread baked at his mill and his 


102 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


bakery, and pay roundly for the same; they could not 
sell a piece of their own property without paying him a 
handsome percentage of the proceeds, nor buy a piece 
of somebody else’s without remembering him in cash 
for the privilege; they had to harvest his grain for him 
gratis, and be ready to come at a moment’s notice, 
leaving their own crop to destruction by the threatened 
storm; they had to let him plant fruit trees in their 
fields, and then keep their indignation to themselves 
when his heedless fruit-gatherers trampled the grain 
around the trees; they had to smother their anger when 
his hunting parties galloped through their fields laying 
waste the result of their patient toil; they were not 
allowed to keep doves themselves, and when the swarms 
trom my lord’s dovecote settled on their crops they 
must not lose their temper and kill a bird, for awful 
would the penalty be; when the harvest was at last 
gathered, then came the procession of robbers to levy 
their blackmail upon it: first the Church carted off its 
fat tenth, then the king’s commissioner took his twez- 
tieth, then my lord’s people made a mighty inroad 
upon the remainder; after which, the skinned freeman 
had liberty to bestow the remnant in his barn, in case 
it was worth the trouble; there were taxes, and taxes, 
and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes again, and yet 
other taxes— upon this free and independent pauper, 
but none upon his lord the baron or the bishop, none 
upon the wasteful nobility or the all-devouring Church; 
if the baron would sleep unvexed, the freeman must sit 
up all night after his day’s work and whip the ponds to 
keep the frogs quiet; if the freeman’s daughter — but 
no, that last infamy of monarchical government is un- 
printable; and finally, if the freeman, grown desperate 
with his tortures, found his life unendurable under such 
conditions, and sacrificed it and fled to death for mercy 
and refuge, the gentle Church condemned him te 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 103 


eternal fire, the gentle law buried him at midnight at the 
cross-roads with a stake through his back, and his master 
the baron or the bishop confiscated all his property and 
turned his widow and his orphans out of doors. 

And here were these freemen assembled in the early 
morning to work on their lord the bishop’s road three 
days each — gratis; every head of a family, and every 
son of a family, three days each, gratis, and a day or 
so added for their servants. Why, it was like reading 
about France and the French, before the ever memor- 
able and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand 
years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of 
blood— one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the 
proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead 
of it that had been pressed by siow tortures out of that 
people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong 
and shame and misery the like of which was not to be 
mated but in hell. There were two ‘‘ Reigns of 
Terror,’’ if we would but remember it and consider it; 
the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in 
heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the 
other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted 
death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a 
hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the 
*‘horrors’’ of the minor Terror, the momentary Ter- 
ror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift 
death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from 
hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is 
swift death by lightning compared with death by slow 
fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the 
coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been 
so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but 
all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that 
older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and 
awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see 
in its vastness or pity as it deseryes. 


104 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing 
their breakfast and their talk with me, were as full of 
humble reverence for their king and Church and nobility 
as their worst enemy could desire. There was some- 
thing pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked them if they 
supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a 
free vote in every man’s hand, would elect that a single 
family and its descendants should reign over it forever, 
whether gifted or boobies, to the exclusion of all other 
families — including the voter’s; and would also elect 
that a certain hundred families should be raised to dizzy 
summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive trans- 
wnissible glories and privileges to the exclusion of the 
rest of the nation’s families — zucluding his own. 

They all looked unhit, and said they didn’t know; 
that they had never thought about it before, and it 
hadn’t ever occurred to them that a nation could be so 
situated that every man could have a say in the govern- 
ment. I said I had seen one—and that it would last 
until it had an Established Church. Again they were 
all unhit— at first. But presently one man iooked up 
and asked me to state that proposition again; and state 
it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding. I 
did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he 
brought his fist down and said fe didn’t believe a 
nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily 
get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and 
that to steal from a nation its will and preference must 
be acrime and the first of all crimes. I said to myself: 

‘* This one’s aman. If I were backed by enough of 
his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this 
country, and try to prove myself its loyalest citizen 
by making a wholesome change in its system of 
government,”’ 

You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s 
country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 105 


The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the 
eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care 
for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they 
are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, be- 
come ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect 
the body from winter, disease, and death. To be 
loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die 
for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure 
animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by 
monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Con- 
necticut, whose Constitution declares ‘‘ that all political 
power is inherent in the people, and all free govern- 
ments are founded on their authority and instituted for 
their benefit; and that they have a¢ a// times an undeni- 
able and indefeasible right to alter their form of goverit. 
ment in such a manner as they may think expedient.’' 

Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees 
that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, 
and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new 
suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the 
only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not ex- 
cuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the 
duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see 
the matter as he does. 

And now here I was, in a country where a right to 
say how the country should be governed was restricted 
to six persons in each thousand of its population. 
For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dis- 
satisfaction with the regnant system and propose to 
change it, would have made the whole six shudder as 
one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonor- 
able, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was 
become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hun- 
dred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the 
money and did all the work, and the other six elected 
themselves a permanent board of direction and took all 


106 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine 
hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal. 
The thing that would have best suited the circus side 
of my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship 
and get up an insurrection and turn it into a revolution; 
but I knew that the Jack Cade or the Wat Tyler who 
tries such a thing without first educating his materials 
up to revolution grade is almost absolutely certain to 
get left. I had never been accustomed to getting left, 
even if Ido say it myself. Wherefore, the “‘ deal’’ 
which had been for some time working into shape 
in my mind was of a quite different pattern from the 
Cade-Tyler sort. 

So I did not talk blood and insurrection to that man 
there who sat munching black bread with that abused 
and mistaught herd of human sheep, but took him 
aside and talked matter of another sort to him. After 
I had finished, I got him to lend me a little ink from 
his veins; and with this and a sliver I wrote on a piece 
of bark — 


Put him in the Man-factory — 


and gave it to him, and said: 

‘** Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it into 
the hands of Amyas le Poulet, whom I call Clarence, 
and he will understand.”’ 

‘* He is a priest, then,’’ said the man, and some of 
the enthusiasm went out of his face. 

‘* How—a priest? Didn’t I tell you that no chattel 
of the Church, no bond-slave of pope or bishop can 
enter my Man-Factory? Didn’t I tell you that you 
couldn’t enter unless your religion, whatever it might 
be, was your own free property ?’’ 

‘* Marry, it is so, and for that I was glad; wherefore 
it liked me not, and bred in mea cold doubt, to hear 
of this priest being there.’ 


) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 107 


** But he isn’t a priest, I tell you.’’ 

The man looked far from satisfied. He said: 

** He is not a priest, and yet can read?’’ 

**He is not a priest and yet can read—yes, and 
write, too, for that matter. I taught him myself.’’ 
The man’s face cleared. ‘‘And it is the first thing 
that you yourself will be taught in that Factory —’’ 

‘“I? I would give blood out of my heart to know 
that art. Why, I will be your slave, your —’’ 

‘*No you won’t, you won’t be anybody’s slave. 
Take your family and go along. Your lord the bishop 
will confiscate your small property, but no matter. 
Clarence will fix you all right.”’ 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“DEFEND THEE, LORD” 


PAID three pennies for my breakfast, and a most 
extravagant price it was, too, seeing that one could 
have breakfasted a dozen persons for that money; but 
I was feeling good by this time, and I had always been 
a kind of spendthrift anyway; and then these people 
had wanted to give me the food for nothing, scant as 
their provision was, and so it was a grateful pleasure to 
emphasize my appreciation and sincere thankfulness 
with a good big financial lift where the money would 
do so much more good than it would in my helmet, 
where, these pennies being made of iron and not stinted 
in weight, my half-dollar’s worth was a good deal of a 
burden to me. I spent money rather too freely in 
those days, it is true; but one reason for it was that I 
hadn’t got the proportions of things entirely adjusted, 
even yet, after so long a sojourn in Britain —hadn’t 
got along to where I was able to absolutely realize that 
a penny in Arthur’s land and a couple of dollars in 
Connecticut were about one and the same thing: just 
twins, as you may say, in purchasing power. If my 
start from Camelot could have been delayed a very few 
days I could have paid these people in beautiful new 
coins from our own mint, and that would have pleased 
me; and them, too, not less. I had adopted the 
American values exclusively. In a week or two now, 
(108 ) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 109 


cents, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, and 
also a trifle of gold, would be trickling in thin but 
steady streams all through the commercial veins of the 
kingdom, and I looked to see this new blood freshen up 
its life. . 

The farmers were bound to throw in something, to 
sort of offset my liberality, whether I would or no; so 
I let them give me a flint and steel; and as soon as 
they had comfortably bestowed Sandy and me on our 
horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smoke 
shot out through the bars of my helmet, all those 
people broke for the woods, and Sandy went over 
backwards and struck the ground with a dull thud. 
They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons 
they had heard so much about from knights and other 
professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade 
those people to venture back within explaining distance. 
Then I told them that this was only a bit of enchant- 
ment which would work harm to none but my enemies. 
And I promised, with my hand on my heart, that if all 
who felt no enmity toward me would come forward and 
pass before me they should see that only those who re- 
mained behind would be struck dead. The procession 
moved with a good deal of promptness. There were no 
casualties to report, for nobody had curiosity enough 
to remain behind to see what would happen. 

I lost some time, now, for these big children, their 
fears gone, became so ravished with wonder over my 
awe-compelling fireworks that I had to stay there and 
smoke a couple of pipes out before they would let me 
go. Still the delay was not wholly unproductive, for 
it took all that time to get Sandy thoroughly wonted to 
the new thing, she being so close to it, you know. It 
plugged up her conversation mill, too, for a consider- 
able while, and that was a gain. But above all other 
benefits accruing, I had learned something. I was 

8 


110 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ready for any giant or any ogre that might come along, 
now. 

We tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my 
opportunity came about the middle of the next after- 
noon. We were crossing a vast meadow by way of 
short-cut, and I was musing absently, hearing nothing, 
seeing nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupted a re’ 
mark which she had begun that morning, with the cry: 

‘* Defend thee, lord !— peril of life is toward !’’ 

And she slipped down from the horse and ran a little 
way and stood. I looked up and saw, far off in the 
shade of a tree, half a dozen armed knights and their 
squires; and straightway there was bustle among them 
and tightening of saddle-girths for the mount. My 
pipe was ready and would have been lit, if I had not 
been lost in thinking about how to banish oppression 
from this land and restore to all its people their stolen 
rights and manhood without disobliging anybody. I lit 
up at once, and by the time I had got a good head of 
reserved steam on, here they came. All together, too; 
none of those chivalrous magnanimities which one 
reads so much about — one courtly rascal at a time, and 
the rest standing by to see fair play. No, they came 
in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush, they 
came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low 
down, plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at 
alevel. It was a handsome sight, a beautiful sight — 
fora manupatree. I laid my lance in rest and waited, 
with my heart beating, till the iron wave was just ready 
to break over me, then spouted a column of white 
smoke through the bars of my helmet. You should 
have seen the wave go to pieces and scatter! This was 
a finer sight than the other one. 

But these people stopped, two or three hundred 
yards away, and this troubled me. My satisfaction 
collapsed, and fear came; I judged I was a lost man, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 411 


But Sandy was radiant; and was going to be eloquent- 
but I stopped her, and told her my magic had mis, 
carried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with 
all despatch, and we must ride for life. No, she 
wouldn’t. She said that my enchantment had disabled 
those knights; they were not riding on, because they 
couldn’t; wait, they would drop out of their saddles. 
presently, and we would get their horses and harness. 
I could not deceive such trusting simplicity, so I said 
it was a mistake; that when my fireworks killed at all, 
they killed instantly; no, the men would not die, there 
was something wrong about my apparatus, I couldn’t 
tell what; but we must hurry and get away, for those 
people would attack us again, in a minute. Sandy 
laughed, and said: 

** Lack-a-day, sir, they be not of that breed! Sir 
Launcelot will give battle to dragons, and will abide by 
them, and will assail them again, and yet again, and 
still again, until he do conquer and destroy them; and 
so likewise will Sir Pellinore and Sir Aglovale and Sir 
Carados, and mayhap others, but there be none else 
that will venture it, let the idle say what the idle will. 
And, la, as to yonder base rufflers, think ye they have 
not their fill, but yet desire more?’’ 

** Well, then, what are they waiting for? Why 
don’t they leave? Nobody’s hindering. Good land, 
I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, I’m sure.’’ 

** Leave, is it? Oh, give thyself easement as to that. 
They dream not of it, no, not they. They wait to 
yield them.”’ 

‘*Come—really, is that. ‘sooth’—as you people 
say? If they want to, why don’t they?’’ 

‘*It would like them much; but an ye wot how 
dragons are esteemed, ye would not hold them blam- 
able. They fear to come.’’ 

** Well, then, suppose 1 go to them instead, and —’’ 


112 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


**Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming. 
I will go.’’ 

And she did. She was a handy person to have 
along on a raid. J would have considered this a doubt- 
ful errand, myself. I presently saw the knights riding 
away, and Sandy coming back. That was a relief. I 
judged she had somehow failed to get the first innings 
—I mean in the conversation; otherwise the interview 
wouldn’t have been so short. But it turned out that 
she had managed the business well; in fact, admirably. 
She said that when she told those people I was The 
Boss, it hit them where they lived: ‘‘ smote them sore 
with fear and dread’’ was her word; and then they 
were ready to put up with anvthing she might require. 
So she swore them to appear at Arthur’s court within 
two days and yield them, with horse and harness, and 
be my knights henceforth, and subject ts my command. 
How much better she managed that thing than i should 
have done it myself! She was a daisy. 


CHAPTER XV. 
SANDY'S TALE 


66 AXP ‘so I’m proprietor of some knights,” said I, 

as we rode off. ‘‘Who would ever have sup- 
posed that I should live to list up assets of that sort. 
I shan’t know what to do with them; unless I raffle 
them off. How many of them are there, Sandy?” 

“Seven, please you, sir, and their squires.’ 

“Tt is a good haul. Who are they? Where do they 
hang out?” om 

“Where do they hang out?” 

“Yes, where do they live?” 

“Ah, I understood thee not. That will I tell 
eftsoons.” ‘Then she said musingly, and softly, turn- 
ing the words daintily over her tongue: “Hang they 
out —hang they out— where hang—where do they 
hang out; eh, right so; where do they hang out. Of 
a truth the phrase hath a fair and winsome grace, and 
is prettily worded withal. I will repeat it anon and 
‘anon in mine idlesse, whereby I may _ peradventure 
learn it. Where do they hang out. Even so! already 
it falleth trippingly from my tongue, and forasmuch 
or” 

“Don’t forget the cowboys, Sandy.” 

“Cowboys?” 

“Yes; the knights, you nani You were going to 
tell me about them. A while back, you remember. 
Figuratively speaking, game’s called.’’ 

8 (113) 


114 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ce Game Le Bg 

*“Yes, yes, yes! Go to the bat. I mean, get to 
work on your statistics, and don’t burn so much 
kindling getting your fire started. Tell me about the 
knights.’”’ 

‘*T will well, and lightly will begin. So they two 
departed and rode into a great forest. And—’’ 

“Great Scott !’’ 

You see, I recognized my mistake at once. I had 
set her works a-going; it was my own fault; she would 
be thirty days getting down to those facts. And she 
generally began without a preface and finished without 
aresult. If you interrupted her she would either go 
right along without noticing, or answer with a couple of 
words, and go back and say the sentence over again. 
So, interruptions only did harm; and yet I had to in- 
terrupt, and interrupt pretty frequently, too, in order 
to save my life; a person would die if he let her me- 
notony drip on him right along all day. 

‘*Great Scott!’ I said in my distress. She went 
right back and began over again: 

‘* So they two departed and rode into a great forest. 
And —’’ 

‘* Which two?"’ 

‘* Sir Gawaine and Sir Uwaine. And so they came 
to an abbey of monks, and there were well lodged. So 
on the morn they heard their masses in the abbey , and 
so they rode forth till they came to a great forest; then 
was Sir Gawaine ware in a valley by a turret, of 
twelve fair damsels, and two knights armed on great 
horses, and the damsels went to and fro by a tree. 
And then was Sir Gawaine ware how there hung a 
white shield on that tree, and ever as the damsels came 
by it they spit upon it, and some threw mire upon the 
shield —’’ 

‘“ Now, if I hadn’t seen the like myself in this country, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 115 


Sandy, I wouldn’t believe it. But I’ve seen it, and I 
can just see those creatures now, parading before that 
shield and acting like that. The women here do cer- 
tainly act like all possessed. Yes, and I mean your 
best, too, society’s very choicest brands. The hum- 
blest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could 
teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the 
highest duchess in Arthur’s land.’’ | 

** Hello-girl ?”’ 

**Yes, but don’t you ask me to explain; it’s a new 
kind of a girl; they don’t have them here; one often 
speaks sharply to them when they are not the least in 
fault, and he can’t get over feeling sorry for it and 
ashamed of himself in thirteen hundred years, it’s such 
shabby mean conduct and so unprovoked; the fact is, 
no gentleman ever does it— though I — well, I myself, 
if I’ve got to confess —’’ 

‘*Peradventure she —’’ 

‘Never mind her; never mind her; I tell you I 
couldn’t ever explain her so you would understand.’’ 

‘* Even so be it, sith ye are so minded. Then Sir 
Gawaine and Sir Uwaine went and saluted them, and 
asked them why they did that despite to the shield. 
Sirs, said the damsels, we shall tell you. There is a 
knight in this country that owneth this white shield, and 
he is a passing good man of his hands, but he hateth 
all ladies and gentlewomen, and therefore we do all this 
despite to the shield. I will say you, said Sir Gawaine, 
it beseemeth evil a good knight to despise all ladies and 
gentlewomen, and peradventure though he hate you he 
hath some cause, and peradventure he loveth in some 
other places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved 
again, and he such a man of prowess as ye speak of —”’ 

‘*Man of prowess — yes, that is the man to please 
them, Sandy. Man of brains—that is a thing they 


never think of. Tom Sayers— John Heenan — John 
H 


116 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


L. Sullivan—pity but you could be here. You 
would have your legs under the Round Table and a 
‘Sir’ in front of your names within the twenty-four 
hours; and you could bring about a new distribution 
of the married princesses and duchesses of the Court in 
another twenty-four. The fact is, it is just a sort of 
polished-up court of Comanches, and there isn’t a 
squaw in it who doesn’t stand ready at the dropping of 
a hat to desert to the buck with the biggest string of 
scalps at his belt.’’ 

‘*_and he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of, 
said Sir Gawaine. Now, what is his name? Sir, said 
they, his name is Marhaus the king’s son of Ireland.’’ 

‘*Son of the king of Ireland, you mean; the other 
form doesn't mean anything. And look out and hold 
on tight, now, we must jump this gully. . 
There, we are all right now. This horse belongs in the 
circus; he is born before his time.’ 

‘*T know him well, said Sir Uwaine, he is a passing 
good knight as any is on live.’’ 

‘“On live. If you’ve got a fault in the world, 
Sandy, it is that you are a shade too archaic. But it 
isn’t any matter.’’ 

‘‘_. for I saw him once proved at a justs where many 
knights were gathered, and that time there might no 
man withstand him. Ah, said Sir Gawaine, damsels, 
methinketh ye are to blame, for it is to suppose he that 
hung that shield there will not be long therefrom, and 
then may those knights match him on horseback, and 
that is more your worship than thus; for I will abide 
no longer to see a knight’s shield dishonored. And 
therewith Sir Uwaine and Sir Gawaine departed a little 
from them, and then were they ware where Sir Marhaus 
came riding on a great horse straight toward them. 
And when the twelve damsels saw Sir Marhaus they 
fled into the turret as they were wild, so that some of 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 117 


them fell by the way. Then the one of the knights of 
the tower dressed his shield, and said on high, Sir Mar- 
haus defend thee. And so they ran together that the 
knight brake his spear on Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus 
smote him so hard that he brake his neck and the 
horse’s back —’’ 

“Well, that is just the trouble about this state of 
things, it ruins so many horses.’’ 

“That saw the other knight of the turret, and 
dressed him toward Marhaus, and they went so eagerly 
together, that the knight of the turret was soon smitten 
down, horse and man, stark dead —’’ 

** Another horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that 
ought to be broken up. I don’t see how people with 
any feeling can applaud and support it.”’ 


**So these two knights came together with great 
random —’’ 

I saw that I had been asleep and missed a chapter, 
but I didn’t say anything. I judged that the Irish 
knight was in trouble with the visitors by this time, and 
this turned out to be the case. 

*“‘—-that Sir Uwaine smote Sir Marhaus that his 
spear brast in pieces on the shield, and Sir Marhaus 
smote him so sore that horse and man he bare to the 
earth, and hurt Sir Uwaine on the left side 

** The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little 
too simple; the vocabulary is too limited, and so, by 
consequence, descriptions suffer in the matter of 
variety; they run too much to level Saharas of fact, 
and not enough to picturesque detail; this throws about 
them a certain air of the monotonous; in fact the fights 
are all alike: a couple of people come together with 
great random—random is a good word, and so is 
exegesis, for that matter, and so is holocaust, and de- 
falcation, and usufruct and a hundred others, but land! 





418 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


a body ought to discriminate—they come together 
with great random, and a spear is brast, and one party 
brake his shield and the other one goes down, horse 
and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and 
then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast 
his spear, and the other man brast his shield, and 
down he goes, horse and man, over his horse-tail, and 
brake /zs neck, and then there’s another elected, and 
another and another and still another, till the material 
is all used up; and when you come to figure up results, 
you can’t tell one fight from another, nor who whip- 
ped; and as a picture, of living, raging, roaring battle, 
sho! why, it’s pale and noiseless — just ghosts scuffling 
inafog. Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary 
get out of the mightiest spectaclep—the burning of 
Rome in Nero’s time, for instance? Why, it would 
merely say, ‘Town burned down; no insurance; boy 
brast a window, fireman brake his neck!’ Why, ¢hat 
ain’t a picture !’’ 

It was a good deal of a lecture, I thought, but it 
didn’t disturb Sandy, didn’t turn a feather; her steam 
soared steadily up again, the minute I took off the lid: 

‘© Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward 
Gawaine with his spear. And when Sir Gawaine saw 
that, he dressed his shield, and they aventred their 
spears, and they came together with all the might of 
tneir horses, that either knight smote other so hard in 
the midst of their shields, but aE Gawaine’s spear 
brake —’’ 

‘*T knew it would.’’ 

—‘‘ but Sir Marhaus’s spear held; and therewith Sir 
Gawaine and his horse rushed down to the earth —’’ 

** Just so—and brake his back.’’ 

—'‘‘and lightly Sir Gawaine rose upon his feet and 
pulled out his sword, and dressed him toward Sir Mar- 
haus on foot, and therewith either came unto other 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 119 


eagerly, and smote together with their swords, that their 
shields flew in cantels, and they bruised their helms and 
their hauberks, and wounded either other. But Sir 
Gawaine, fro it passed nine of the clock, waxed by the 
space of three hours ever stronger and stronger, and 
thrice his might was increased. All this espied Sir 
Marhaus, and had great wonder how his might in- 
creased, and so they wounded other passing sore; and 
then when it was come noon —’’ 

The pelting sing-song of it carried me forward to 
scenes and sounds of my boyhood days: 

** N-e-e-ew Haven! ten minutes for refreshments — 
knductr ’ll strike the gong-bell two minutes before train 
leaves — passengers for the Shore line please take seats 
in the rear k’yar, this k’yar don’t go no furder — ahkh- 
pls, aw-rnjz, b’zazners, s-a-n-d’ ches, p op-corn }’’ 

—‘‘and waxed past noon and drew toward even- 
song. Sir Gawaine’s strength feebled and waxed pass- 
ing faint, that unnethes he might dure any longer, and 
Sir Marhaus was then bigger and bigger —’’ 

** Which strained his armor, of course; and yet little 
would one of these people mind a small thing like that.’’ 

—‘‘and so, Sir Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have 
well felt that ye are a passing good knight, and a mar- 
velous man of might as ever I felt any, while it lasteth, 
and our quarrels are not great, and therefore it were a 
pity to do you hurt, for I feel you are passing feeble. 
Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle knight, ye say the word 
-that I should say. And therewith they took off their 
helms and either kissed other, and there they swore 
together either to love other as brethren —”’ 

But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber, 
thinking about what a pity it was that men with such 
superb strength — strength enabling them to stand up 
cased in cruelly burdensome iron and drenched with 
perspiration, and hack and batter and bang each other 





120 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


for six hours on a stretch—should not have been 
born at a time when they could put it to some useful 
purpose. Take a jackass, for instance: a jackass has 
that kind of strength, and puts it to a useful purpose, 
and is valuable to this world because he zs a jackass; 
but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass. 
It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should 
never have been attempted in the first place. And yet, 
once you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you 
never know what is going to come of it. 

When I came to myself again and began to listen, I 
perceived that I had lost another chapter, and that 
Alisande had wandered a long way off with her people. 

‘* And so they rode and came into a deep valley full 
of stones, and thereby they saw a fair stream of water; 
above thereby was the head of the stream, a fair foun- 
tain, and three damsels sitting thereby. In this coun- 
try, said Sir Marhaus, came never knight since it was 
christened, but he found strange adventures —’’ 

‘* This is not good form, Alisande. Sir Marhaus the 
king’s son of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought 
to give him a brogue, or at least a characteristic exple- 
tive; by this means one would recognize him as soon 
as he spoke, without his ever being named. It isa 
common literary device with the great authors. You 
should make him say, ‘In this country, be jabers, came 
never knight since it was christened, but he found 
strange adventures, be jabers.” You see how much 
better that sounds.”’ 

—‘‘came never knight but he found strange adven- 
tures, be jabers. Of a truth it doth indeed, fair lord, 
albeit ’tis passing hard to say, though peradventure 
that will not tarry but better speed with usage. And 
then they rode to the damsels, and either saluted other, 
and the eldest had a garland of gold about her head, 
and she was threescore winter of age or more —’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 121 


**The damsel was?”’ 

** Even so, dear lord —and her hair was white under 
the garland —’’ 

** Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not — 
the loose-fit kind, that go up and down like a portcullis 
when you eat, and fall out when you laugh.”’ 

‘“The second damsel was of thirty winter of age, 
with a circlet of gold about her head. The third damsel 
was but fifteen year of age —’’ 

Billows of thought came rolling over my soul, and 
the voice faded out of my hearing! 

Fifteen! Break—my heart! oh, my lost darling! 
Just her age who was so gentle, and lovely, and all the 
world to me, and whom I shall never see again! How 
the thought of her carries me back over wide seas of 
memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many, 
many centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft 
summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say 
“Hello, Central!’’ just to hear her dear voice come 
melting back to me with a ‘‘ Hello, Hank!’’ that was 
music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got 
three dollars a week, but she was worth it. 

I could not follow Alisande’s further explanation of 
who our captured knights were, now—I mean in case 
she should ever get to explaining who they were. My 
interest was gone, my thoughts were far away, and sad. 
By fitful glimpses of the drifting tale, caught here and 
there and now and then, I merely noted in a vague way 
that each of these three knights took one of these three 
damsels up behind him on his horse, and one rode 
north, another east, the other south, to seek adventures, 
and meet again and lie, after year and day. Year and 
day — and without baggage. It was of a piece with 
the general simplicity of the country. 

The sun was now setting. It was about three in the 
afternoon when Alisande had begun to tell me who the 


122 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


cowboys were; so she had made pretty good progress 
with it—for her. She would arrive some time or 
other, no doubt, but she was not a person who could 
be hurried. 

We were approaching a castle which stood on high 
ground; a huge, strong, venerable structure, whose 
gray towers and battlements were charmingly draped 
with ivy, and whose whole majestic mass was drenched 
with splendors flung from the sinking sun. It was the 
largest castle we had seen, and so I thought it might be 
the one we were after, but Sandy said no. She did 
not know who owned it; she said she had passed it 
without calling, when she went down to Camelot. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


MORGAN LE FAY 


F knights errant were to be believed, not all castles 
were desirable places to seek hospitality in. Asa 
matter of fact, knights errant were wot persons to be 
believed —that is, measured by modern standards of 
veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own 
time, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth. It 
was very simple: you discounted a statement ninety- 
seven per cent.; the rest was fact. Now after making 
this allowance, the truth remained that if I could find 
out something about a castle before ringing the door- 
bell—I mean hailing the warders — it was the sensible 
thing to do. SoIwas pleased when I saw in the dis- 
tance a horseman making the bottom turn of the road 
that wound down from this castle. 

As we approached each other, I saw that he wore a 
plumed helmet, and seemed to be otherwise clothed in 
steel, but bore a curious addition also—a stiff square 
garment like a herald’s tabard. However, I had to 
smile at my own forgetfulness when I got nearer and 
_ read this sign on his tabard: 

** Persimmons’s Soap— All the Prime-Donne Use It.’’ 

That was a little idea of my own, and had several 
wholesome purposes in view toward the civilizing and 
uplifting of this nation. In the first place, it was a 
furtive, underhand blow at this nonsense of knight 

9 


424 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


errantry, though nobody suspected that but me. 1 
had statted a number of these people out —- the bravest 
knights I could get— each sandwiched between bul- 
letin-boards bearing one device or another, and I 
judged that by and by when they got to be numerous 
enough they would begin to look ridiculous; and then, 
even the steel-clad ass that adn’t any board would 
himself begin to look ridiculous because he was out of 
the fashion. 

Secondly, these missionaries would gradually, and 
without creating suspicion or exciting alarm, introduce 
a rudimentary cleanliness among the nobility, and from 
them it would work down to the people, if the priests 
could be kept quiet. This would undermine the 
Church. I mean would be a step toward that. Next, » 
education — next, freedom — and then she would begin 
to crumble. It being my conviction that any Estab- 
lished Church is an established crime, an established 
slave-pen, I had no scruples, but was willing to assail 
it in any way or with any weapon that promised to 
hurt it. Why, in my own former day—Zin remote 
centuries not yet stirring in the womb of time — there 
were old Englishmen who imagined that they had been 
born in a free country: a ‘‘free’’ country with the 
Corporation Act and the Test still in force in it— 
timbers propped against men’s liberties and dishonored 
consciences to shore up an Established Anachronism 
with. 

My missionaries were taught to spell out the gilt 
signs on their tabards—the showy gilding was a neat 
idea, I could have got the king to wear a bulletin-board 
for the sake of that barbaric splendor — they were to 
spell out these signs and then explain to the lords and 
ladies what soap was; and if the lords and ladies were 
afraid of it, get them to try iton adog. The mission- 
ary’s next move was to get the family together and try 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 125 


it on himself; he was to stop at no experiment, how- 
ever desperate, that could convince the nobility that 
soap was harmless; if any final doubt remained, he 
must catch a hermit— the woods were full of them; 
saints they called themselves, and saints they were be- 
lieved to be. They were unspeakably holy, and worked 
miracles, and everybody stood in awe of them. Ifa 
hermit could survive a wash, and that failed to convince 
a duke, give him up, let him alone. 

Whenever my missionaries overcame a knight errant 
on the road they washed him, and when he got well 
they swore him to go and get a bulletin-board and dis- 
seminate soap and civilization the rest of his days. As 
a consequence the workers in the field were increasing 
by degrees, and the reform was steadily spreading. 
My soap factory felt the strain early. At first I had 
only two hands; but before I had left home I was 
already employing fifteen, and running night and day; 
and the atmospheric result was getting so pronounced 
that the king went sort of fainting and gasping around 
and said he did not believe he could stand it much 
longer, and Sir Launcelot got so that he did hardly 
anything but walk up and down the roof and swear, 
although I told him it was worse up there than any- 
where else, but he said he wanted plenty of air; and 
he was always complaining that a palace was no place 
for a soap factory anyway, and said if a man was to 
start one in his house he would be damned if he 
wouldn’t strangle him. There were ladies present, 
too, but much these people ever cared for that; they 
would swear before children, if the wind was their way 
when the factory was going. 

This missionary knight’s name was La Cote Male 
Taile, and he said that this castle was the abode of 
Morgan le Fay, sister of King Arthur, and wife of 


King Uriens, monarch of a realm about as big as the 
9 


126 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


District of Columbia-—— you could stand in the middle 
of it and throw bricks into the next kingdom. 
‘*Kings’’ and ‘‘ Kingdoms’’ were as thick in Britain 
as they had been in little Palestine in Joshua’s time, 
when people had to sleep with their knees pulled up 
because they couldn’t stretch out without a passport. 

La Cote was much depressed, for he had scored 
here the worst failure of his campaign. He had not 
worked off a cake; yet he had tried all the tricks of 
the trade, even to the washing of a hermit; but the 
hermit died. This was, indeed, a bad failure, for this 
animal would now be dubbed a martyr, and would take 
his place among the saints of the Roman caiendar. 
Thus made he his moan, this poor Sir La Cote Maie 
Taile, and sorrowed passing sore. And so my heart 
bled for him, and I was moved to comfort and stay 
him. Wherefore I said: 

‘*Forbear to grieve, fair knight, for this is not a 
defeat. We have brains, you and 1; and for such as 
have brains there are no defeats, but only victories. 
Observe how we will turn this seeming disaster into an 
advertisement; an advertisement for our soap; and 
the biggest one, to draw, that was ever thought of; an 
advertisement that will transform that Mount Washing- 
ton defeat into a Matterhorn victory. We will put on 
your bulletin-board, ‘ Patronized by the Elect.’ How 
does that strike you?’’ 

** Verily, it is wonderly bethought 

** Well, a body is bound to admit that for just a 
modest little one-line ad., it’s a corker.’’ 

So the poor colporteur’s griefs vanished away. He 
was a brave fellow, and had done mighty feats of arms 
in his time. His chief celebrity rested upon the events 
of an excursion like this one of mine, which he had 
once made with a damsel named Maledisant, who was 
as handy with her tongue as was Sandy, though in a 


1?? 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 127 


different way, for her tongue churned forth only rail. 
ings and insult, whereas Sandy’s music was of a 
kindlier sort. I knew his story well, and so I knew 
how to interpret the compassion that was in his face 
when he bade me farewell. He supposed I was having 
a bitter hard time of it. 

Sandy and I discussed his story, as we rode along, 
and she said that La Cote’s bad luck had begun with 
the very beginning of that trip; for the king’s fool had 
overthrown him on the first day, and in such cases it 
was customary for the girl to desert to the conqueror, 
but Maledisant didn’t do it; and also persisted after- 
ward in sticking to him, after all his defeats. But, 
said I, suppose the victor should decline to accept his 
spoil? She said that that wouldn’t answer — he must. 
He couldn’t decline; it wouldn’t be regular. I made 
a note of that. If Sandy’s music got to be too 
burdensome, some time, I would let a knight defeat 
me, on the chance that she would desert to him. 

In due time we were challenged by the warders, 
from the castle walls, and after a parley admitted. I 
have nothing pleasant to tell about that visit. But it 
was not a disappointment, for I knew Mrs. le Fay by 
reputation, and was not expecting anything pleasant. 
She was held in awe by the whole realm, for she had 
made everybody believe she was a great sorceress. All 
her ways were wicked, all her instincts devilish. She 
was loaded to the eyelids with cold malice. All her 
history was black with crime; and among her crimes 
murder was common. I was most curious to see her; 
as curious as I could have been to see Satan. To my 
surprise she was beautiful; black thoughts had failed 
to make her expression repulsive, age had failed to 
wrinkle her satin skin or mar its bloomy freshness. 
She could have passed for old Uriens’ granddaughter, 
she could have been mistaken for sister to her own son, 


128 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘As soon as we were fairly within the castle gates we 
were ordered into her presence. King Uriens was 
there, a kind-faced old man with a subdued look; and 
also the son, Sir Uwaine le Blanchemains, in whom I 
was, of course, interested on account of the tradition 
that he had once done battle with thirty knights, and 
also on account of his trip with Sir Gawaine and Sir 
Marhaus, which Sandy had been aging me with. But 
Morgan was the main attraction, the conspicuous per- 
sonality here; she was head chief of this household, 
that was plain. She caused us to be seated, and then 
she began, with all manner of pretty graces and 
graciousnesses, to ask me questions. Dear me, it was 
like a bird or a flute, or something, talking. I felt 
persuaded that this woman must have been misrepre- 
sented, lied about. She trilled along, and trilled along, 
and presently a handsome young page, clothed like the 
rainbow, and as easy and undulatory of movement as a 
wave, came with something on a golden salver, and, 
kneeling to present it to her, overdid his graces and 
lost his balance, and so fell lightly against her knee. 
She slipped a dirk into him in as matter-of-course a 
way as another person would have harpooned a rat! 

Poor child! he slumped to the floor, twisted his silken 
limbs in one great straining contortion of pain, and was 
dead. Out of the old king was wrung an involuntary 
‘*O-h!’’ of compassion. The look he got, made him 
cut it suddenly short and not put any more hyphens in 
it. Sir Uwaine, at a sign from his mother, went to 
the anteroom and called some servants, and meanwhile 
madame went rippling sweetly along with her talk. 

I saw that she was a good housekeeper, for while 
she talked she kept a corner of her eye on the servants 
to see that they made no balks in handling the body 
and getting it out; when they came with fresh clean 
towels, she sent back for the other kind; and when 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 129 


they had finished wiping the floor and were going, she 
indicated a crimson fleck the size of a tear which their 
duller eyes had overlooked. It was plain to me that 
La Cote Male Taile had failed to see the mistress of 
the house. Often, how louder and clearer than any 
tongue, does dumb circumstantial evidence speak. 

Morgan le Fay rippled along as musically as ever. 
Marvelous woman. And what a glance she had: when 
it fell in reproof upon those servants, they shrunk and 
quailed as timid people do when the lightning flashes 
out of acloud. I could have got the habit myself. It 
was the same with that poor old Brer Uriens; he was 
always on the ragged edge of apprehension; she could 
not even turn toward him but he winced. 

In the midst of the talk I let drop a complimentary 
word about King Arthur, forgetting for the moment 
how this woman hated her brother. That one little 
compliment was enough. She clouded up like a 
storm; she called for her guards, and said: 

** Hale me these varlets to the dungeons.”’ 

That struck cold on my ears, for her dungeons had 
a reputation. Nothing occurred to me to say—or 
do. But not so with Sandy. As the guard laid a 
hand upon me, she piped up with the tranquilest con- 
fidence, and said: 

** God’s wownds, dost thou covet destruction, thou 
maniac? It is The Boss!’’ 

Now what a happy idea that was! —and so simple; 
yet it would never have occurred to me. I was born 
modest; not all over, but in spots; and this was one 
of the spots. 

The effect upon madame was electrical. It cleared 
her countenance and brought back her smiles and all 
her persuasive graces and blandishments; but never- 
theless she was not able to entirely cover up with them 
the fact that she was in a ghastly fright. She said: 

9 


130 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘*La, but do list to thine handmaid! as if one 
gifted with powers like to mine might say the thing 
which I have said unto one who has vanquished 
Merlin, and not be jesting. By mine enchantments I 
foresaw your coming, and by them I knew you when 
you entered here. I did but play this little jest with 
hope to surprise you into some display of your art, as 
not doubting you would blast the guards with occult 
fires, consuming them to ashes on the spot, a marvel 
much beyond mine own ability, yet one which I have 
long been childishly curious to see.”’ 

The guards were less curious, and got out as soon as 
they got permission. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A ROYAL BANQUET | 


ADAME, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no 
doubt judged that I was deceived by her excuse; 

for her fright dissolved away, and she was soon so 
importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill 
somebody, that the thing grew to be embarrassing. 
However, to my relief she was presently interrupted by 
the call to prayers. I will say this much for the 
nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and 
morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and 
enthusiastically religious. Nothing could divert them 
from the regular and faithful performance of the pieties 
enjoined by the Church. More than once I had seen 
a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage, 
stop to pray before cutting his throat; more than once 
I had seen a noble, after ambushing and despatching 
his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and 
humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the 
body. There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the 
life of even Benvenuto Cellini, that rough-hewn saint, 
ten centuries later. All the nobles of Britain, with 
their families, attended divine service morning and 
night daily, in their private chapels, and even the 
worst of them had family worship five or six times a 
day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely to 
the Church. Although I was no friend to that Cath- 
olic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, 

I (131) 


132 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


in spite of me, I found myself saying, ‘‘ What would 
this country be without the Church?’’ 

After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting 
hall which was lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and 
everything was as fine and lavish and rudely splendid 
as might become the royal degree of the hosts. At 
the head cf the hall, on a dais, was the table of the 
king, queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretching 
down the hall from this, was the general table, on the 
floor. At this, above the salt, sat the visiting nobles 
and the grown members of their families, of both 
sexes,—the resident Court, in effect — sixty-one per- 
sons; below the salt sat minor officers of the house- 
hold, with their principal subordinates: altogether a 
hundred and eighteen persons sitting, and about as 
many liveried servants standing behind their chairs, or 
serving in one capacity or another. It was a very fine 
show. Ina gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps, 
and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what 
seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of 
the wail known to later centuries as ‘‘In the Sweet 
Bye and Bye.’’ It was new, and ought to have been 
rehearsed a little more. For some reason or other the 
queen had the composer hanged, after dinner. 

After this music, the priest who stood behind the 
royal table said a noble long grace in ostensible Latin. 
Then the battalion of waiters broke away from their 
posts, and darted, rushed, flew, fetched and carried, 
and the mighty feeding began; no words anywhere, 
but absorbing attention to business. The rows of 
chops opened and shut in vast unison, and the sound 
of it was like to the muffled burr of subterranean 
machinery. 

The havoc continued an hour and a half, and unim- 
aginable was the destruction of substantials. Of the 
chief feature of the feast — the huge wild boar that lay 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 133 


stretched out so portly and imposing at the start — 
nothing was left but the semblance of a hoop-skirt; 
and he was but the type and symbol of what had_ hap- 
pened to all the other dishes. 

With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking 
began — and the talk. Gallon after gallon of wine and 
mead disappeared, and everybody got comfortable, 
then happy, then sparklingly joyous— both sexes,— 
and by and by pretty noisy. Men told anecdotes that 
were terrific to hear, but nobody blushed; and when 
the nub was sprung, the assemblage let go with a 
horse-laugh that shook the fortress. Ladies answered 
back with historiettes that would almost have made 
Queen Margaret of Navarre or even the great Elizabeth 
of England hide behind a handkerchief, but nobody 
hid here, but only laughed — howled, you may say. 
In pretty much all of these dreadful stories, ecclesiastics 
were the hardy heroes, but that didn’t worry the chap- 
lain any, he had his laugh with the rest; more than 
that, upon invitation he roared out a song which was 
of as daring a sort as any that was sung that night. 

By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore 
with laughing; and, as a rule, drunk: some weepingly, 
some affectionately, some hilariously, some quarrei- 
somely, some dead and under the table. Of the 
ladies, the worst spectacle was a lovely young duch- 
ess, whose wedding-eve this was; and indeed she was 
a spectacle, sure enough. Just as she was she could 
have sat in advance for the portrait of the young 
aaughter of the Regent d’Orleans, at the famous dinner 
whence she was carried, foul-mouthed, intoxicated, and 
helpless, to her bed, in the lost and lamented days of 
the Ancient Regime. 

Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands, 
and all conscious heads were bowed in reverent expec- 
tation of the coming blessing, there appeared under 


134 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


the arch of the far-off door at the bottom of the hall 
an old and bent and white-haired lady, leaning upon a 
crutch-stick; and she lifted the stick and pointed it 
toward the queen and cried out: 

‘* The wrath and curse of God fall upon you, woman 
without pity, who have slain mine innocent grandchild 
and made desolate this old heart that had nor chick, nor 
friend nor stay nor comfort in all this world but him !”’ 

Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for a 
curse was an awful thing to those people; but the 
queen rose up majestic, with the death-light in her 
eye, and flung back this ruthless command: 

‘‘Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!”’ 

The guards left their posts to obey. It was a 
shame; it was a cruel thing to see. What could be 
done? Sandy gave me a look; I knew she had an- 
other inspiration. I said: 

** Do what you choose.’’ 

She was up and facing toward the queen in a mo- 
ment. She indicated me, and said: 

‘Madame, #e saith this may not be. Recall the 
commandment, or he will dissolve the castle and it 
shall vanish away like the instable fabric of a dream!’’ 

Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a per- 
son to! What if the queen — 

But my consternation subsided there, and my panic 
passed off; for the queen, all in a collapse, made no 
show of resistance but gave a countermanding sign and 
sunk into her seat. When she reached it she was 
sober. -So were many of the others. The assemblage 
rose, whiffed ceremony to the winds, and rushed for 
the door like a mob; overturning chairs, smashing 
crockery, tugging, struggling, shouldering, crowding 
— anything to get out before I should change my 
mind and puff the castle into the measureless dim 
vacancies of space. Well, well, well, they were a 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 135 


superstitious lot. It is all a body can do to conceive 
of it. 

The poor queen was so scared and humbled that she 
was even afraid to hang the composer without first 
consulting me. Iwas very sorry for her — indeed, any 
one would have been, for she was really suffering; so 
I was willing to do anything that was reasonable, and 
had no desire to carry things to wanton extremities. I 
therefore considered the matter thoughtfully, and ended 
by having the musicians ordered into our presence to 
play that Sweet Bye and Bye again, which they did. 
Then I saw that she was right, and gave her permission 
to hang the whole band. This little relaxation of 
sternness had a good effect upon the queen. A states- 
man gains little by the arbitrary exercise of iron-clad 
authority upon all occasions that offer, for this wounds 
the just pride of his subordinates, and thus tends to 
undermine his strength. A little concession, now and 
then, where it can do no harm, is the wiser policy. 

Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once 
more, and measurably happy, her wine naturally began 
to assert itself again, and it got a little the start of her. 
I mean it set her music going— her silver bell of a 
tongue. Dear me, she was a master talker. It would 
not become me to suggest that it was pretty late and 
that I was a tired man and very sleepy. I wished I 
had gone off to bed when I had the chance. NeowlI 
must stick it out; there was no other way. So she 
tinkled along and along, in the otherwise profound and 
ghostly hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by 
there came, as if from deep down under us, a far-away 
sound, as of a muffled shriek — with an expression of 
agony about it that made my flesh crawl. The queen 
stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted 
her graceful head as a bird does when it listens. The 
sound bored its way up through the stillness again. 


136 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


** What is it?’’ I said. 

‘It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It 
is many hours now.”’ 

** Endureth what?’’ 

‘*The rack. Come—ye shall see a blithe sight. 
An he yield not his secret now, ye shall see him torn 
asunder.”’ 

What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so com- 
posed and serene, when the cords all down my legs 
were hurting in sympathy with that man’s pain. Con- 
ducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches, we 
tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone stair- 
ways dank and dripping, and smelling of mould and 
ages of imprisoned night—a chill, uncanny journey 
and a long one, and not made the shorter or the 
cheerier by the sorceress’s talk, which was about this 
sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an 
anonymous informer, of having killed a stag in the 
royal preserves. I said: 

‘* Anonymous testimony isn’t just the right thing, 
your Highness. It were fairer to confront the accused 
with the accuser.”’ 

‘‘T had not thought of that, it being but of small 
consequence. But an I would, I could not, for that 
the accuser came masked by night, and told the 
forester, and straightway got him hence again, and so 
the forester knoweth him not.’’ 

‘Then is this Unknown the only person who saw 
the stag killed ?’’ 

** Marry, zo man saw the killing, but this Unknown 
saw this hardy wretch near to the spot where the stag 
lay, and came with right loyal zeal and betrayed him 
to the forester.’’ 

‘“So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too? 
Isn’t it just possible that he did the killing himself? 
His loyal zeal— in a mask—Jlooks just a shade sus- 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 137 


picious. But what is your Highness’s idea for racking 
the prisoner? Where is the profit?’’ 

** He will not confess, else; and then were his soul 
lost. For his crime his life is forfeited by the law — 
and of a surety will I see that he payeth it! — but it 
were peril to my own soul to tet him die unconfessed 
and unabsolved. Nay, I were a fool to fling me into 
hell for 47s accommodation.”’ 

**But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to 
confess ?”’ 

** As to that, we shall see, anon. AnJI rack him to 
death and he confess not, it will peradventure show 
that he had indeed naught to confess — ye will grant 
that that is sooth? Then shall I not be damned for 
an unconfessed man that had naught to confess — 
wherefore, I shall be safe.’’ 

It was the stubborn unreasoning of the time. It was 
useless to argue with her. Arguments have no chance 
against petrified training; they wear it as little as the 
waves wear a cliff. And her training was everybody’s. 
The brightest intellect in the land would not have been 
able to see that her position was defective. 

As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that 
will not go from me; I wish it would. A native young 
giant of thirty or thereabouts lay stretched upon the 
frame on his back, with his wrists and ankles tied te 
ropes which led over windlasses at either end. There 
was no color in him; his features were contorted and 
set, and sweat-drops stood upon his forehead. A 
priest bent over him on each side; the executioner 
stood by; guards were on duty; smoking torches 
stood in sockets along the walls; in a corner crouched 
a poor young creature, her face drawn with anguish, 
a half-wild and hunted look in her eyes, and in her lap 
lay a little child asleep. Just as we stepped across the 
threshold the executioner gave his machine a slight 


138 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


turn, which wrung a cry from both the prisoner and 
the woman; but I shouted, and the executioner released 
the strain without waiting to see who spoke. I could 
not let this horror go on; it would have killed me to 
see it. I asked the queen to let me clear the place 
and speak to the prisoner privately; and when she was 
going to object I spoke in a low voice and said I did 
not want to make a scene before her servants, but I 
must have my way; for I was King Arthur’s repre- 
sentative, and was speaking in his name. She saw she 
had to yield. JI asked her to indorse me to these peo- 
ple, and then leave me. It was not pleasant for her, 
but she took the pill; and even went further than I 
was meaning to require. I only wanted the backing of 
her own authority; but she said: 

‘* Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command. 
It is The Boss.’’ 

It was certainly a good word to conjure with: you 
could see it by the squirming of these rats. The 
queen’s guards fell into line, and she and they marched 
away, with their torch-bearers, and woke the echoes of 
the cavernous tunnels with the measured beat of their 
retreating footfalls. I had the prisoner taken from 
the rack and placed upon his bed, and medicaments 
applied to his hurts, and wine given him to drink. 
The woman crept near and looked on, eagerly, lov- 
ingly, but timorously,— like one who fears a repulse; 
indeed, she tried furtively to touch the man’s forehead, 
and jumped back, the picture of fright, when I turned 
unconsciously toward her. It was pitiful to see. 

‘““Lord,’’ I said, ** stroke him, lass, if you want to. 
Do anything you’re a mind to; don’t mind me.”’ 

Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal’s, when 
you do it a kindness that it understands. The baby 
was out of her way and she had her cheek against the 
man’s in a minute, and her hands fondling his hair, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 139 


and her happy tears running down. The man revived, 
and caressed his wife with his eyes, which was all he 
could do. I judged I might clear the den, now, and I 
did; cleared it of all but the family and myself. Then 
I said: 

‘“ Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter; 
I know the other side.’’ 

The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But 
the woman looked pleased—as it seemed to me— 
pleased with my suggestion. I went on: 

**You know of me?’’ 

**Yes. All do, in Arthur’s realms.’’ 

“If my reputation has come to you right and 
straight, you should not be afraid to speak.’’ 

The woman broke in, eagerlv: 

** Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou 
canst an thou wilt. Ah, he suffereth so; and it is for 
me—for me/ And how can I bear it? I would I 
might see him die—a sweet, swift death; oh, my 
Hugo, I cannot bear this one!’’ 

And she fell to sobbing and grovelling about my 
feet, and still imploring. Imploring what? The man’s 
death? I could not quite get the bearings of the thing. 
But Hugo interrupted her and said: 

**Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve 
whom I love, to win a gentle death? I wend thou 
knewest me better.’’ 

**Well,’’ I said, ‘‘I can’t quite make this out. It 
is a puzzle. Now—’”’ 

** Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! 
Consider how these his tortures wound me! Oh, and 
he will not speak !— whereas, the healing, the solace 
that lie in a blessed swift death —’’ 

*“ What ave you maundering about? He’s going out 
from here a free man and whole — he’s not going to 
the"? 


10 


140 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


The man’s white face lit up, and the woman flung 
herself at me in a most surprising explosion of joy, 
and cried out: 

‘*He is saved!—for it is the king's word by the 
mouth of the king’s servant — Arthui, the king whose 
word is gold!”’ 

‘* Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after 
all. Why didn’t you before?’’ 

‘*Who doubted? NotI, indeed; and not she.’’ 

‘Well, why wouldn’t you tell me your story, then?’’ 

“Ye had made no promise; else had it been other- 
wise.”’ 

“*T see, I see....And yet I believe I don’t quite 
see, after all. You stood the torture and refused to 
confess; which shows plain enough to even the dull- 
est understanding that you had nothing to confess —’’ 

‘*7, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the 
deer !’’ 

““You did? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up 
business that ever —’’ 

‘*Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, 
but—’’ 

““You did/ It gets thicker and thicker. What did 
you want him to do that for?’’ 

‘Sith it would bring him a quick death and save 
him all this cruel pain.’’ 

‘“ Well — yes, there is reason in that. But e didn’t 
want the quick death.’’ 

““He? Why, of a surety he did.”’ 

““ Well, then, why in the world didn’t he confess?’’ 

‘“ Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick with- 
out bread and shelter ?’’ 

‘*Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law 
takes the convicted man’s estate and beggars his widow 
and his orphans. They could torture you to death, 
but without conviction or confession they could not 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 141 


rob your wife and baby. You stood by them like a 
man; and you—true wife and true woman that you 
are — you would have bought him release from torture 
at cost to yourself of slow starvation and death — well, 
it humbles a body to think what your sex can do when 
it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll book you both for my 
colony; you’ll like it there; it’s a Factory where I’m 
going to turn groping and grubbing automata into 
men.”’ 
ro 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


IN THE QUEEN’S DUNGEONS 


ELL, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent 

to his home. I had a great desire to rack the 
executioner; not because he was a good, painstaking 
and paingiving official—for surely it was not to his 
discredit that he performed his functions well— but to 
pay him back for wantonly cuffing and otherwise dis- 
tressing that young woman. ‘The priests told me about 
this, and were generously hot to have him punished. 
Something of this disagreeable sort was turning up 
every now and then. I mean, episodes that showed 
that not all priests were frauds and self-seekers, but 
that many, even the great majority, of these that were 
down on the ground among the common people, were 
sincere and right-hearted, and devoted to the alleviation 
of human troubles and sufferings. Well, it was a thing 
which could not be helped, so I seldom fretted about 
it, and never many minutes at a time; it has never 
been my way to bother much about things which you 
can’t cure. But I did not like it, for it was just the 
sort of thing to keep people reconciled to an Estab- 
lished Church. We must have a religion—it goes 
without saying — but my idea is, to have it cut up into 
forty free sects, so that they will police each other, as 
had been the case in the United States in my time. 
Concentration of power in a political machine is bad; 
and an Established Church is only a political machine; 

(142) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 143 


it was invented for that; it is nursed, cradled, pre- 
served for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and 
does no good which it could not better do in a split-up 
and scattered condition. That wasn’t law; it wasn’t 
gospel: it was only an opinion—my opinion, and I 
was only a man, one man: so it wasn’t worth any 
more than the pope’s—or any less, for that matter. 

Well, I couldn’t rack the executioner, neither would 
I overlook the just complaint of the priests. The man 
must be punished somehow or other, so I degraded 
him from his office and made him leader of the band 
—the new one that was to be started. He begged 
hard, and said he couldn’t play —a plausible excuse, 
but too thin; there wasn’t a musician in the country 
that could. 

The queen was a good deal outraged, next morning, 
when she found she was going to have neither Hugo’s 
life nor his property. But I told her she must bear 
this cross; that while by law and custom she certainly 
was entitled to both the man’s life and his property, 
there were extenuating circumstances, and so in Arthur 
the king’s name I had pardoned him. The deer was 
ravaging the man’s fields, and he had killed it in sud- 
den passion, and not for gain; and he had carried it 
into the royal forest in the hope that that might make 
detection of the misdoer impossible. Confound her, I 
couldn’t make her see that sudden passion is an ex- 
tenuating circumstance in the killing of venison — or 
of a person—so I gave it up and let her sulk it out. 
I did think I was going to make her see it by remark- 
ing that her own sudden passion in the case of the 
page modified that crime. 

‘*Crime!’’ she exclaimed. ‘* How thou talkest! 
Crime, forsooth! Man, Iam going to gay for him!’’ 

Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training 
~—-training is everything; training is all there is oa 


144 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


person. We speak of nature; itis folly; there is no 
such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading 
name is merely heredity and training. We have no 
thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they 
are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is 
original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or dis- 
creditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the 
point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms 
contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of 
ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the 
Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our 
race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and un- 
profitably developed. And as for me, all that I think 
about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this pathetic 
drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly 
live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that 
one microscopic atom in me that is truly me. the rest 
may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care. 

No, confound her, her intellect was good, she had 
brains enough, but her training made her an ass — that 
is, from a many-centuries-later point of view. To kill 
the page was no crime —it was her right; and upon 
her right she stood, serenely and unconscious of 
offense. She was a result of generations of training 
in the unexamined and unassailed belief that the law 
which permitted her to kill a subject when she chose 
was a perfectly right and righteous one. 

Well, we must give even Satan his due. She de- 
served a compliment for one thing; and I tried to pay 
it, but the words stuck in my throat. She had a right 
to kill the boy, but she was in no wise obliged to pay 
for him. That was law for some other people, but 
not for her. She knew quite well that she was doing a 
large and generous thing to pay for that lad, and that 
I ought in common fairness to come out with some- 
thing handsome about it, but I couldn’t— my mouth 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 145 


refused. I couldn’t help seeing, in my fancy, that 
poor old grandma with the broken heart, and that fair 
young creature lying butchered, his little silken pomps 
and vanities laced with his golden blood. How could 
she pay for him! Whom could she pay? And so, 
well knowing that this woman, trained as she had been, 
deserved praise, even adulation, I was yet not able to 
utter it, trained as / had been. The best I could do 
was to fish up a compliment from outside, so to speak 
—and the pity of it was, that it was true: 

** Madame, your people will adore you for this.”’ 

Quite true, but I meant to hang her for it some day, 
if I lived. Some of those laws were too bad, altogether 
too bad. A master might kill his slave for nothing: 
for mere spite, malice, or to pass the time — just as 
we have seen that the crowned head could do it with 
his slave, that is to say, anybody. A gentleman could 
kill a free commoner, and pay for him—cash or 
garden-truck. A noble could kill a noble without ex- 
pense, as far as the law was concerned, but reprisals in 
kind were to be expected. Azybody could kill some- 
body, except the commoner and the slave; these had 
no privileges. If they killed, it was murder, and the 
law wouldn’t stand murder. It made short work of 
the experimenter —and of his family, too, if he mur- 
dered somebody who belonged up among the orna- 
mental ranks. If a commoner gave a noble even so 
much as a Damiens-scratch which didn’t kill or even 
hurt, he got Damiens’ dose for it just the same; they 
pulled him to rags and tatters with horses, and all the 
world came to see the show, and crack jokes, and have 
a good time; and some of the performances of the 
best people present were as tough, and as properly 
unprintable, as any that have been printed by the 
pleasant Casanova in his chapter about the dismember- 
ment of Efais XV.’s poor awkward enemy. 


146 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


I had had enough of this grisly place by this time, 
and wanted to leave, but I couldn’t, because I had 
something on my mind that my conscience kept prod- 
ding me about, and wouldn’t let me forget. If I had 
the remaking of man, he wouldn’t have any conscience. 
It is one of the most disagreeable things connected 
with a person; and although it certainly does a great 
deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the long run; 
it would be much better to have less good and more 
comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and I am only 
one man; others, with less experience, may think 
differently. They have a right to their view. I only 
stand to this: I have noticed my conscience for many 
years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to me 
than anything else I started with. I suppose that in 
the beginning I prized it, because we prize anything 
that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so. 
If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it 
is: if I had an anvil in me would I prize it? Of course 
not. And yet when you come to think, there is no 
real difference between a conscience and an anvil—I 
mean for comfort. I have noticed it a thousand times. 
And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when yor 
couldn’t stand it any longer; but there isn’t any way 
that you can work off a conscience — at least so it will 
stay worked off; not that I know of, anyway. 

There was something I wanted to do before leaving, 
but it was a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at 
it. . Well, it bothered me all the morning. I could 
have mentioned it to the old king, but what would be 
the use?—he was but an extinct volcano; he had 
been active in his time, but his fire was out, this good 
while, he was only a stately ash-pile now; gentle 
enough, and kindly enough for my purpose, without 
doubt, but not usable. He was nothing, this so-called 
king: the queen was the only power there. And she 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 147 


was a Vesuvius. As a favor, she might consent to 
warm a flock of sparrows for you, but then she might 
take that very opportunity to turn herself loose and 
bury acity. However, I reflected that as often as any 
other way, when you are expecting the worst, you get 
something that is not so bad, after all. 

So I braced up and placed my matter before her 
royal Highness. I said I had been having a general 
jail-delivery at Camelot and among neighboring castles, 
and with her permission I would like to examine her 
collection, her bric-a-brac — that is to say, her prison- 
ers. She resisted; but I was expecting that. But she 
finally consented. I was expecting that, too, but not 
so soon. That about ended my discomfort. She 
called her guards and torches, and we went down into 
the dungeons. These were down under the castle’s 
foundations, and mainly were small cells hollowed out 
of the living rock. Some of these cells had no light at 
all. In one of them was a woman, in foul rags, who 
sat on the ground, and would not answer a question or 
speak a word, but only looked up at us once or twice, 
through a cobweb of tangled hair, as if to see what 
casual thing it might be that was disturbing with sound 
and light the meaningless dull dream that was become 
her life; after that, she sat bowed, with her dirt-caked 
fingers idly interlocked in her lap, and gave no further 
sign. This poor rack of bones was a woman of middle 
age, apparently; but only apparently; she had been 
there nine years, and was eighteen when she entered. 
She was a commoner, and had been sent here on her 
bridal night by Sir Breuse Sance Pité, a neighboring 
lord whose vassal her father was, and to which said 
lord she had refused what has since been called /e drozt 
du setgneur , and, moreover, had opposed violence to 
violence and spilt half a gill of his almost sacred blood. 
The young husband had interfered at that point, be- 

J 


148 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


lieving the bride’s life in danger, and had flung the 
noble out into the midst of the humble and trembling 
wedding guests, in the parlor, and left him there aston- 
ished at this strange treatment, and implacably embit- 
tered against both bride and groom. The said lord 
being cramped for dungeon-room had asked the queen 
to accommodate his two criminals, and here in her 
bastile they had been ever since; hither, indeed, they 
had come before their crime was an hour old, and had 
never seen each other since. Here they were, ker- 
neled like toads in the same rock; they had passed 
nine pitch dark years within fifty feet of each other, 
yet neither knew whether the other was alive or not. 
All the first years, their only question had been— 
asked with beseechings and tears that might have 
moved stones, in time, perhaps, but hearts are not 
stones: ‘‘Is he alive?’’ ‘‘*Is she alive?’ But they 
had never got an answer; and at last that question was 
not asked any more — or any other. 

I wanted to see the man, after hearing all this. He 
was thirty-four years old, and looked sixty. He sat 
upon a squared block of stone, with his head bent 
down, his forearms resting on his knees, his long hair 
hanging like a fringe before his face, and he was 
muttering to himself. He raised his chin and looked 
us slowly over, in a listless dull way, blinking with the 
distress of the torchlight, then dropped his head and 
fell to muttering again and took no further notice of 
us. There were some pathetically suggestive dumb 
witnesses present. On his wrists and ankles were 
cicatrices, old smooth scars, and fastened to the stone 
on which he sat was a chain with manacles and fetters 
attached; but this apparatus lay idle on the ground, 
and was thick with rust. Chains cease to be needed 
after the spirit has gone out of a prisoner. 

I could not rouse the man; so I said we would take 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 149 


him to her, and see—to the bride who was the fairest 
thing in the earth to him, once — roses, pearls, and dew 
made flesh, for him; a wonder-work, the master-work 
of nature: with eyes like no other eyes, and voice like 
no other voice, and a freshness, and lithe young grace, 
and beauty, that belonged properly to the creatures of 
dreams — as he thought — and to no other. The sight 
of her would set his stagnant blood leaping; the sight 
of her — 

But it was a disappointment. They sat together on 
the ground and looked dimly wondering into each 
other’s faces a while, with a sort of weak animal curi- 
osity; then forgot each other’s presence, and dropped 
their eyes, and you saw that they were away again and 
wandering in some far land of dreams and shadows 
that we know nothing about. 

I had them taken out and sent to their friends. The 
queen did not like it much. Not that she felt any 
personal interest in the matter, but she thought it dis- 
respectful to Sir Breuse Sance Pité. However, I 
assured her that if he found he couldn’t stand it I 
would fix him so that he could. 

I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful 
rat-holes, and left only one in captivity. He was a 
lord, and had killed another lord, a sort of kinsman of 
the queen. That other lord had ambushed him to 
assassinate him, but this fellow had got the best of him 
and cut his throat. However, it was not for that that 
I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying the 
only public well in one of his wretched villages. The 
queen was bound to hang him for killing her kinsman, 
but I would not allow it: it was no crime to kill an 
assassin. But I said I was willing to let her hang him 
for destroying the well; so she concluded to put up 
with that, as it was better than nothing. 

Dear me, for what trifling offenses the most of those 


150 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


forty-seven men and women were shut up there! In- 
deed, some were there for no distinct offense at all, 
but only to gratify somebody’s spite; and not always 
the queen’s by any means, but a friend’s. The newest 
prisoner’s crime was a mere remark which he had 
made. He said he believed that men were about all 
alike, and one man as good as another, barring clothes. 
He said he believed that if you were to strip the nation 
naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he 
couldn’t tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke 
from a hotel clerk. Apparently here was a man whose 
brains had not been reduced to an ineffectual mush by 
idiotic training. I set him loose and sent him to the 
Factory. 

Some of the cells carved in the living rock were just 
behind the face of the precipice, and in each of these 
an arrow-slit had been pierced outward to the daylight, 
and so the captive had a thin ray from the blessed sun 
for his comfort. The case of one of these poor fel- 
lows was particularly hard. From his dusky swallow’s 
hole high up in that vast wall of native rock he could 
peer out through the arrow-slit and see his own home 
off yonder in the valley; and for twenty-two years he 
had watched it, with heartache and longing, through 
that crack. He could see the lights shine there at 
night, and in the daytime he could see figures go in 
and come out— his wife and children, some of them, 
no doubt, though he could not make out at that dis- 
tance. In the course of years he noted festivities 
there, and tried to rejoice, and wondered if they were 
weddings or what they might be. And he noted 
funerals; and they wrung his heart. He could make 
out the coffin, but he could not determine its size, and 
so could not tell whether it was wife or child. He 
could see the procession form, with priests and mourn- 
ers, and move solemnly away, bearing the secret with 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 154 


them. He had left behind him five children and a 
wife; and in nineteen years he had seen five funerals 
issue, and none of them humble enough in pomp to 
denote a servant. So he had lost five of his treasures; 
there must still be one remaining — one now infinitely, 
unspeakably precious,— but which one? wife, or child? 
That was the question that tortured him, by night and 
by day, asleep and awake. Well, to have an interest, 
of some sort, and half a ray of light, when you are in 
a dungeon, is a great support to the body and preserver 
of the intellect. This man was in pretty good condi- 
tion yet. By the time he had finished telling me his 
distressful tale, I was in the same state of mind that 
you would have been in yourself, if you have got 
average humaii curiosity; that is to say, I was as 
burning up as he was to find out which member of 
the family it was that was left. So I took him over 
home myself; and an amazing kind of a surprise party 
it was, too—typhoons and cyclones of frantic joy, 
and whole Niagaras of happy tears; and by George! 
we found the aforetime young matron graying toward 
the imminent verge of her half century, and the babies 
all men and women, and some of them married and 
experimenting familywise themselves——for nota soul 
of the tribe was dead! Conceive of the ingenious 
devilishness of that queen: she had a special hatred 
for this prisoner, and she had zzvented all those funer- 
als herself, to scorch his heart with; and the sublimest 
stroke of genius of the whole thing was leaving the 
family-invoice a funeral short, so as to let him wear his 
poor old soul out guessing. 

But for me, he never would have got out. Morgan 
le Fay hated him with her whole heart, and she never 
would have softened toward him. And yet his crime 
was committed more in thoughtlessness than deliberate 


deptavity. He had said she had red hair, Well, she 


152 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


had; but that was no way to speak of it. When red- 
headed people are above a certain social grade their 
hair is auburn. 

Consider it: among these forty-seven captives there 
were five whose names, offenses, and dates of incar- 
ceration were no longer known! One woman and four 
men—all bent, and wrinkled, and mind-extinguished 
patriarchs. They themselves had long ago forgotten 
these details; at any rate they had mere vague theories 
about them, nothing definite and nothing that they re- 
peated twice in the same way. The succession of 
priests whose office it had been to pray daily with the 
captives and remind them that God had put them 
there, for some wise purpose or other, and teach them 
that patience, humbleness, and submission to oppres- 
sion was what He loved to see in parties of a subordi- 
nate rank, had traditions about these poor old human 
ruins, but nothing more. These traditions went but 
little way, for they concerned the length of the incar- 
ceration only, and not the names of the offenses. And 
even by the help of tradition the only thing that could 
be proven was that none of the five had seen daylight 
for thirty-five years: how much longer this privation 
has lasted was not guessable. The king and the queen 
knew nothing about these poor creatures, except that 
they were heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the 
throne, from the former firm. Nothing of their history 
had been transmitted with their persons, and so the 
inheriting owners had considered them of no value, 
and had felt no interest in them. I said to the queen: 

‘* Then why in the world didn’t you set them free?”’ 

The question was a puzzler. She didn’t know why 
she hadn’t; the thing had never come up in her mind. 
So here she was, forecasting the veritable history of 
future prisoners of the Castle d’If, without knowing it. 
It seemed plain to me now, that with her training, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 153 


those inherited prisoners were merely property — noth: 
ing more, nothing less. Well, when we inherit prop: 
erty, it does not occur to us to throw it away, even 
when we do not value it. 

When I brought my procession of human bats up 
into the open world and the glare of the afternoon sun 
— previously blindfolding them, in charity for eyes 
so long untortured by light—they were a spectacle 
to look at. Skeletons, scarecrows, goblins, pathetic 
frights, every one; legitimatest possible children of 
Monarchy by the Grace of God and the Established 
Church. I muttered absently: 

**I wzsk I could photograph them !’’ 

You have seen that kind of people who will never let 
on that they don’t know the meaning of a new big 
word. The more ignorant they are, the more pitifully 
certain they are to pretend vou haven’t shot over their 
heads. The queen was just one of that sort, and was 
always making the stupidest blunders by reason of it. 
She hesitated a moment; then her face brightened up 
with sudden comprehension, and she said she would 
do it for me. 

I thought to myself: She? why what can she know. 
about photography? But it was a poor time to be 
thinking. When I looked around, she was moving on 
the procession with an axe! 

Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan 
le Fay. I have seen'a good many kinds of women in 
my time, but she laid over them all for variety. And 
how sharply characteristic of her this episode was. 
She had no more idea than a horse of how to photo- 
graph a procession; but being in doubt, it was just 
like her to try to do it with an axe. | 


CHAPTER XIX. 


KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE 


ANDY and I were on the road again, next morn- 
ing, bright and early. It was so good to open up 
one’s lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful of 
the blessed God’s untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland- 
scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind 
for two days and nights in the moral and physical 
stenches of that intolerable old buzzard-roost! I 
mean, for me: of course the place was all right and 
agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to 
high life all her days. 

Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now 
for a while, and I was expecting to get the conse- 
quences. I was right; but she had stood by me most 
helpfully in the castle, and had mightily supported and 
reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were 
worth more for the occasion than wisdoms double 
their size; so I thought she had earned a right to work 
her mill for a while, if she wanted to, and I felt nota 
pang when she started it up: 

‘* Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the 
damsel of thirty winter of age southward —’’ 

“Are you going to see if you can work up another 
half-stretch on the trail of the cowboys, Sandy ?’’ 

‘* Even so, fair my lord.’’ 

‘*Go ahead, then. I won’t interrupt this time, if I 

(154) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 155 


can help it. Begin over again; start fair, and shake 
out all your reefs, and I will load my pipe and give 
good attention.’ 

‘“ Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the 
damsel of thirty winter of age southward. And so 
they came into a deep forest, and by fortune they were 
nighted, and rode along in a deep way, and at the last 
they came into a courtelage where abode the duke of 
South Marches, and there they asked harbour. And 
on the morn the duke sent unto Sir Marhaus, and bad 
him make him ready. And so Sir Marhaus arose and 
armed him, and there was a mass sung afore him, and 
he brake his fast, and so mounted on horseback in the 
court of the castle, there they should do the battle. 
So there was the duke already ‘on horseback, clean 
armed, and his six sons by him, and every each had a 
spear in his hand, and so they encountered, whereas 
the duke and his two sons brake their spears upon 
him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and touched 
none of them. Then came the four sons by couples, 
and two of them brake their spears, and so did the 
other two. And all this while Sir Marhaus touched 
them not. Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke, and - 
smote hiai with his spear that horse and man fell to 
the earth. And so he served his sons. And then Sir 
Marhaus alight down, and bad the duke yield him or 
else he would slay him. And then some of his sons 
recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus. 
Then Sir Marhaus said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or 
else I will do the uttermost to you all. When the 
duke saw he might not escape the death, he cried to 
his sons, and charged them to yield them to Sir Mar- 
haus. And they kneeled all down and put the pom- 
mels of their swords to the knight, and so he received 
them. And then they holp up their father, and so by 


their common assent promised unto Sir Marhaus never 
Is 


156 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


to be foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon at Whit- 
suntide after, to come he and his sons, and put them 
in the king’s grace.* 

‘* Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss. Now 
ye shall wit that that very duke and his six sons are 
they whom but few days past you also did overcome 
and send to Arthur’s court!’’ 

‘Why, Sandy, you can’t mean it!’’ 

** An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me.”’ 

‘* Well, well, well—now who would ever have 
thought it? One whole duke and six dukelets; why, 
Sandy, it was an elegant haul. Knight-errantry is a 
most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard 
work, too, but I begin to see that there zs money in 
it, after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever 
engage in it as a business; for I wouldn’t. No sound 
and legitimate business can be established on a basis of 
speculation. A successful whirl in the knight-errantry 
line — now what is it when you blow away the non- 
sense and come down to the cold facts? It’s justa 
corner in pork, that’s all, and you can’t make anything 
else out of it. You’re rich — yes,— suddenly rich — 
for about a day, maybe a week; then somebody cor- 
ners the market on you, and down goes your bucket- 
shop; ain’t that so, Sandy?”’ 

‘*Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth, 
bewraying simple language in such sort that the words 
do seem to come endlong and overthwart —’’ 

‘*There’s no use in beating about the bush and 
trying to get around it that way, Sandy, it’s so, just as 
I say. I know it’s so. And, moreover, when you 
come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry is 
worse than pork; for whatever happens, the pork’s 


* The story is borrowed, language and all, from the Morte d’Arthur— 
MT. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 157 


left, and so somebody’s benefited anyway; but when 
the market breaks, in a knight-errantry whirl, and 
every knight in the pool passes in his checks, what 
have you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of bat- 
tered corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware. 
Can you call ¢hose assets? Give me pork, every time. 
Am I right?’’ 

**Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by 
the manifold matters whereunto the confusions of these 
but late adventured haps and fortunings whereby not 
I alone nor you alone, but every each of us, meseem- 
eth —’’ 

** No, it’s not your head, Sandy. Your head’s all 
right, as far as it goes, but you don’t know business; 
that’s where the trouble is. It unfits you to argue 
about business, and you’re wrong to be always trying. 
However, that aside, it was a good haul, anyway, and 
will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur’s 
court. And speaking of the cowboys, what a curious 
country this is for women and men that never get old. 
Now there’s Morgan le Fay, as fresh and young as a 
Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and here is this old 
duke of the South Marches still slashing away with 
sword and lance at his time of life, after raising such a | 
family as he has raised. As I understand it, Sir 
Gawaine killed seven of his sons, and still he had six 
left for Sir Marhaus and me to take into camp. And 
then there was that damsel of sixty winter of age still 
excursioning around in her frosty bloom— How old 
are you, Sandy?’’ 

It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her, 
The mill had shut down for repairs, or something. 


It 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE OGRE’S CASTLE 


ETWEEN six and nine we made ten miles, which 

was plenty for a horse carrying triple— man, 

woman, and armor; then we stopped for a long noon- 
ing under some trees by a limpid brook. 

Right so came by and by a knight riding; and as he 
drew near he made dolorous moan, and by the words 
of it I perceived that he was cursing and swearing; yet 
nevertheless was I glad of his coming, for that I saw 
he bore a_ bulletin-board whereon in letters all cf 
shining gold was writ: 


‘‘Usez PETERSON’S PROPHYLACTIC TOOTH-BRUSH — 
ALL THE GO.’’ 


I was glad of his coming, for even by this token I 
knew him for knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de 
la Montaine, a burly great fellow whose chief distinc- 
tion was that he had come within an ace of sending Sir 
Launcelot down over his horse-tail once. He was 
never long in a stranger’s presence without finding 
some pretext or other to let out that great fact. But 
there was another fact of nearly the same size, which 
he never pushed upon anybody unasked, and yet never 
withheld when asked: that was, that the reason he 
didn’t quite succeed was, that he was interrupted and 
sent down over horse-tail himself. This innocent vast 


(155) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 159 


lubber did not see any particular difference between 
the two facts. I liked him, for he was earnest in his 
work, and very valuable. And he was so fine to look 
at, with his broad mailed shoulders, and the grand 
leonine set of his plumed head, and his big shield 
with its quaint device of a gauntleted hand clutch- 
ing a prophylactic tooth-brush, with motto: ‘* Z7zp 
Noyoudont.’’ This was a tooth-wash that I was 
introducing. 

He was aweary, he said, and indeed he looked it; 
but he would not alight. He said he was after the 
stove-polish man; and with this he broke out cursing 
and swearing anew. The bulletin-boarder referred to 
was Sir Ossaise of Surluse, a brave knight, and of 
considerable celebrity on account of his having tried 
conclusions in a tournament once, with no less a Mogul 
that Sir Gaheris himself — although not successfully. 
He was of a light and laughing disposition, and to him 
nothing in this world was serious. It was for this 
reason that I had chosen him to work up a stove-polish 
sentiment. There were no stoves yet, and so there 
could be nothing serious about stove-polish. All that 
the agent needed to do was to deftly and by degrees - 
prepare the public for the great change, and have them 
established in predilections toward neatness against the 
time when the stove should appear upon the stage. 

Sir Madok was very bitter, and brake out anew with 
cursings. He said he had cursed his soul to rags; 
and yet he would not get down from his horse, neither 
would he take any rest, or listen to any comfort, until 
he should have found Sir Ossaise and settled this ac- 
count. It appeared, by what I could piece together 
of the unprofane fragments of his statement, that he 
had chanced upon Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning, 
and been told that if he would make a short cut across 
the fields and swamps and broken hills and glades, he 


160 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


could head off a company of travelers who would be 
rare customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash. With 
characteristic zeal Sir Madok had plunged away at 
once upon this quest, and after three hours of awful 
crosslot riding had overhauled his game. And behold, 
it was the five patriarchs that had been released from 
the dungeons the evening before! Poor old creatures, 
it was all of twenty years since any one of them had 
known what it was to be equipped with any remaining 
snag or remnant of a tooth. 

** Blank-blank-blank him,’’ said Sir Madok, “‘ an I 
do not stove-polish him an I may find him, leave it to 
me; for never no knight that hight Ossaise or aught 
else may do me this disservice and bide on live, an I 
may find him, the which I have thereunto sworn a 
ereat oath this day.”’ 

And with these words and others, he lightly took his 
spear and gat him thence. In the middle of the after- 
noon we came upon one of those very patriarchs our- 
selves, in the edge of a poor village. He was basking 
in the love of relatives and friends whom he had not 
seen for fifty years; and about him and caressing him 
were also descendants of his own body whom he had 
never seen at all till now; but to him these were all 
strangers, his memory was gone, his mind was stag- 
nant. It seemed incredible that a man could outlast 
half a century shut up in a dark hole like a rat, but 
here were his old wife and some old comrades to 
testify to it. They could remember him as he was in 
the freshness and strength of his young manhood, 
when he kissed his child and delivered it to its mother’s 
hands and went away into that long oblivion. The 
people at the castle could not tell within half a genera- 
tion the length of time the man had been shut up there 
for his unrecorded and forgotten offense; but this old 
wife knew; and so did her old child, who stood there 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 161 


among her married sons and daughters trying to realize 
a father who had been to her a name, a thought, a 
formless image, a tradition, all her life, and now was 
suddenly concreted into actual flesh and blood and set 
before her face. 

It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that ac- 
count that I have made room for it here, but on 
account of a thing which seemed to me still more 
curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter brought 
from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage 
against these oppressors. They had been heritors and 
subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing 
could have startled them but a kindness. Yes, here 
was a curious revelation, indeed, of the depth to which 
this people had been sunk in slavery. Their entire 
being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of 
patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance 
of whatever might befall them in this life. Their very 
imagination was dead. When you can say that of a 
man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no 
lower deep for him. 

I rather wished I had gone some other road. This 
was not the sort of experience for a statesman to en- 
counter who was planning out a peaceful revolution in 
his mind. For it could not help bringing up the un- 
get-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philoso- 
phizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in 
the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody- 
goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law 
that all revolutions that will succeed must degzn in 
blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history 
teaches anything, it teaches that. What this folk 
needed, then, was a Reign of Terror and a guillotine, 
and I was the wrong man for them. 

Two days later, toward noon, Sandy began to show 
signs of excitement and feverish expectancy. She 


162 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


said we were approaching the ogre’s castle. I was 
surprised into an uncomfortable shock. The object of 
our quest had gradually dropped out of my mind; this 
sudden resurrection of it made it seem quite a real and 
startling thing for a moment, and roused up in me a 
smart interest. Sandy’s excitement increased every 
moment; and so did mine, for that sort of thing is 
catching. My heart got to thumping. You can’t 
reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and 
thumps about things which the intellect scorns. Pres- 
ently, when Sandy slid from the horse, motioned me 
to stop, and went creeping stealthily, with her head 
bent nearly to her knees, toward a row of bushes that 
bordered a declivity, the thumpings grew stronger and 
quicker. And they kept it up while she was gaining 
her ambush and getting her glimpse over the declivity ; 
and also while I was creeping to her side on my knees. 
Her eyes were burning now, as she pointed with her 
finger, and said in a panting whisper: 

‘*The castle! The castle! Lo, where it looms!’’ 

What a welcome disappointment I experienced! I 
said: 

‘*Castle? It is nothing but a pigsty; a pigsty with 
a wattled fence around it.’’ 

She looked surprised and distressed. The animation 
faded out of her face; and during many moments she 
was lost in thought and silent. Then: 

““It was not enchanted aforetime,’’ she said in a 
musing fashion, as if to herself. ‘‘ And how strange 
is this marvel, and how awful—that to the one per- 
ception it is enchanted and dight in a base and shame- 
ful aspect; yet to the perception of the other it is not 
enchanted, hath suffered no change, but stands firm 
and stately still, girt with its moat and waving its ban- 
ners in the blue air from its towers. And God shield 
us, how it pricks the heart to see again these gracious 


’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 163 


captives, and the sorrow deepened in their sweet faces! 
We have tarried along, and are to blame.’’ 

I saw my cue. The castle was enchanted to me, not 
to her. It would be wasted time to try to argue her 
out of her delusion, it couldn’t be done; I must just 
humor it. So I said: 

‘* This is a common case — the enchanting of a thing 
to one eye and leaving it in its proper form to another. 
You have heard of it before, Sandy, though you 
haven’t happened to experience it. But no harm is 
done. In fact, it is lucky the way it is. If these 
ladies were hogs to everybody and to themselves, it 
would be necessary to break the enchantment, and that 
might be impossible if one failed to find out the par- 
ticular process of the enchantment. And hazardous, 
too; for in attempting a disenchantment without the 
true key, you are liable to err, and turn your hogs into 
dogs, and the dogs into cats, the cats into rats, and so 
on, and end by reducing your materials to nothing 
finally, or to an odorless gas which you can’t follow — 
which, of course, amounts te the same thing. But 
here, by good luck, no one’s eyes but mine are under 
the enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to | 
dissolve it. These ladies remain ladies to you, and to 
themselves, and to everybody else; and at the same 
time they will suffer in no way from my delusion, for 
when I know that an ostensible hog is a lady, that is 
enough for me, I know how to treat her.’’ 

** Thanks, oh, sweet my lord, thou talkest like an 
angel. And I know that thou wilt deliver them, for 
that thou art minded to great deeds and art as strong a 
knight of your hands and as brave to will and to do, 
as any that is on live.’’ 

** I will not leave a princess in the sty, Sandy. Are 
those three yonder that to my disordered eyes are 
starveling swine-herds —’’ 

K 


164 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘*The ogres? Are ¢hey changed also? It is most 
wonderful. Now am I fearful; for how canst thou 
strike with sure aim when five of their nine cubits of 
stature are to thee invisible? Ah, go warily, fair sir; 
this is a mightier emprise than I wend.’’ 

‘You be easy, Sandy. All I need to know is, how 
much of an ogre is invisible; then I know how te 
locate his vitals. Don’t you be afraid, I will make 
short work of these bunco-steerers. Stay where you 
ares * 

I left Sandy kneeling there, corpse-faced but plucky 
and hopeful, and rode down to the pigsty, and struck 
up a trade with the swine-herds. I won their gratitude 
by buying out all the hogs at the lump sum of sixteen 
pennies, which was rather above latest quotations. I 
was just in time; for the Church, the lord of the 
manor, and the rest of the tax-gatherers would have 
been along next day and swept off pretty much all the 
stock, leaving the swine-herds very short of hogs and 
Sandy out of princesses. But now the tax people 
could be paid in cash, and there would be a stake left 
besides. One of the men had ten children; and he 
said that last year when a priest came and of his ten 
pigs took the fattest one for tithes, the wife burst out 
upon him, and offered him a child and said: 

‘*Thou beast without bowels of mercy, why leave 
me my child, yet rob me of the wherewithal to feed it?’’ 

How curious. The same thing had happened in the 
Wales of my day, under this same old Established 
Church, which was supposed by many to have changed 
its nature when it changed its disguise, 

I sent the three men away, and then opened the sty 
gate and beckoned Sandy to come—which she did; 
and not leisurely, but with the rush of a prairie fire 
And when I saw her fling herself upon those hogs, 
with tears of joy running down her cheeks, and strain 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 165 


them to her heart, and kiss them, and caress them, 
and call them reverently by grand princely names, I 
was ashamed of her, ashamed of the human race. 

We had to drive those hogs home—ten miles; and 
no ladies were ever more fickle-minded or contrary. 
They would stay in no road, no path; they broke out 
through the brush on all sides, and flowed away in all 
directions, over rocks, and hills, and the roughest 
places they could find. And they must not be struck, 
or roughly accosted; Sandy could not bear to see 
them treated in ways unbecoming their rank. The 
troublesomest old sow of the lot had to be called my 
Lady, and your Highness, like the rest. It is annoy- 
ing and difficult to scour around after hogs, in armor, 
There was one small countess, with an iron ring in her 
snout and hardly any hair on her back, that was the 
devil for perversity. She gave me a race of an hour, 
over all sorts of country, and then we were right where 
we had started from, having made nota rod of real 
progress. I seized her at last by the tail, and brought 
her along squealing. When I overtook Sandy she was 
horrified, and said it was in the last degree indelicate 
to drag a countess by her train. 

We got the hogs home just at dark — most of them. 
The princess Nerovens de Morganore was missing, and 
two cf her ladies in waiting: namely, Miss Angela 
Bohun, and the Demoiselle Elaine Courtemains, the 
former of these two being a young black sow witha 
white star in her forehead, and the latter a brown one 
with thin legs and a slight limp in the forward shank 
_ on the starboard side—a couple of the tryingest blis- 
ters to drive that I ever saw. Also among the missing 
were several mere baronesses— and I wanted them to 
stay missing; but no, all that sausage-meat had to be 
found; so servants were sent out with torches to scour 
the woods and hills to that end. 


166 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Of course, the whole drove was housed in the house, 
and, great guns! — well, I never saw anything like it. 
Nor ever heard anything like it. And never smelt 
anything like it. It was like an insurrection in a gaso- 
meter. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


THE PILGRIMS 


HEN I did get to bed at last I was unspeakably 
tired; the stretching out, and the relaxing of 

the long-tense muscles, how luxurious, how delicious! 
but that was as far as I could get— sleep was out of 
the question for the present. The ripping and tearing 
and squealing of the nobility up and down the halls 
and corridors was pandemonium come again, and kept 
me broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts were 
busy, of course; and mainly they busied themselves 
with Sandy’s curious delusion. Here she was, as sane 
a person as the kingdom could produce; and yet, 
from my point of view she was acting like a crazy 
woman. My land, the power of training! of influence! 
of education! It can bring a body up to believe any- 
thing. I had to put myself in Sandy’s place to realize 
that she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine, 
to demonstrate how easy it is to seem a lunatic toa 
person who has not been taught as you have been 
taught. If I had told Sandy I had seen a wagon, 
uninfluenced by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an 
hour; had seen a man, unequipped with magic powers, 
get into a basket and soar out of sight among the 
clouds; and had listened, without any necromancer’s 
help, to the conversation of a person who was several 
hundred miles away, Sandy would not merely have 

167 


168 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘supposed me to be crazy, she would have thought she 
knew it. Everybody around her believed in enchant- 
ments; nobody had any dcubts; to doubt that a castle 
could be turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs, 
would have beén the same as my doubting among Con- 
necticut people the actuality of the telephone and its 
wonders,— and in both cases would be absolute proof 
of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy 
was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be 
sane — to Sandy -——I must keep my superstitions about 
unenchanted and unmiraculous locomotives, balloons, 
and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed that the 
world was not flat, and hadn’t pillars under it to sup- 
port it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of 
water that occupied all space above; but as I was the 
only person in the kingdom afflicted with such impious 
and criminal opinions, I recognized that it would be 
good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, if I 
did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by 
everybody as a madman. 

The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in the 
dining-room and gave them their breakfast, waiting 
upon them personally and manifesting in every way 
the deep reverence which the natives of her island, 
ancient and modern, have always felt for rank, let its 
outward casket and the mental and moral contents be 
what they may. I could have eaten with the hogs if I 
had had birth approaching my lofty official rank; but 
I hadn’t, and so accepted the unavoidable slight and 
made no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast at 
the second table. The family were not at home. I 
said: 

‘‘ How many are in the family, Sandy, and where 
do they keep themselves?’’ 

** Family ?”’ 

a i a 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 169 


*“ Which family, good my lord?’’ 

*“ Why, this family; your own family.’’ 

**Sooth to say, I understand you not. I have no 
family.’’ 

** No family? Why, Sandy, isn’t this your home?’’ 

** Now how indeed might that be? I have no home.’’ 

** Well, then, whose house is this?’’ 

““Ah, wit you well I would tell you an I knew 
myself,’’ 

*““Come—you don’t even know these people? 
Then who invited us here?’’ 

** None invited us. We but came; that is all.’’ 

“Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary per- 
formance. The effrontery of it is beyond admiration. 
We blandly march into a man’s house, and cram it 
full of the only really valuable nobility the sun has yet 
discovered in the earth, and then it turns out that we 
don’t even know the man’s name. How did you ever 
venture to take this extravagant liberty? I supposed, 
of course, it was your home. What will the man say?’’ 

x What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but 
give thanks?’’ 

** Thanks for what?’’ 

Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise: 

**Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with 
strange words. Do ye dream that one of his estate is 
like to have the honor twice in his life to entertain 
company such as we have brought to grace his house 
withal?’’ 

** Well, no—when you come to that. No, it’s an 
even bet that this is the first time he has had a treat 
like this.’’ 

‘*Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same 
by grateful speech and due humility; he were a dog, 
elise, and the heir and ancestor of dogs.’’ 

To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It 


170 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


might become more so. It might ke a good idea ta 
muster the hogs and move on. So I said: 

** The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the 
nobility together and be moving.’’ 

‘* Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?’’ 

‘* We want to take them to their home, don’t we?”’ 

**La, but list to him! They be of all the regions of 
the earth! Each must hie to her own home; wend 
you we might do all these journeys in one so brief life 
as He hath appointed that created life, and thereto 
death likewise with help of Adam, who by sin done 
through persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wrought 
upon and bewrayed by the beguilements of the great 
enemy of man, that serpent hight Satan, aforetime 
consecrated and set apart unto that evil work by over- 
mastering spite and envy begotten in his heart through 
fell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erst 
so white and pure whenso it hove with the shining 
multitudes its brethren-born in glade and shade of that 
fair heaven wherein all such as native be to that rich 
estate and —’’ 

** Great Scott !’’ 

** My lord ?’’ 

**Well, you know we haven’t got time for this sort 
of thing. Don’t you see, we could distribute these 
people around the earth in less time than it is going to 
take you to explain that we can’t. We mustn’t talk 
now, we must act. You want to be careful; you 
mustn’t let your mill get the start of you that way, at 
a time like this. ‘To business now—and sharp’s the 
word. Who is to take the aristocracy home?’’ 

‘“Even their friends. These will come for them 
from the far parts of the earth.’’ 

This was lightning from a clear sky, fer unexpected- 
ness; and the relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner, 
She would remain to deliver the goods, of course. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 171 


** Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely 
and successfully ended, I will go home and report; 
and if ever another one —’”’ 

**T also am ready; I will go with thee.’’ 

This was recalling the pardon. 

*“How? You will go with me? Why should you?’’ 

“Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That 
were dishonor. I may not part from thee until in 
knightly encounter in the field some overmatching 
champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me. I were 
to blame an I thought that that might ever hap.”’ 

‘“Elected for the long term,’’ I sighed to myself. 
** I may as well make the best of it.’’ So then I spoke 
up and said: 

‘** All right; let us make a start.’’ 

While she was gone to cry her farewells over the 
pork, I gave that whole peerage away to the servants. 
And I asked them to take a duster and dust around a 
little where the nobilities had mainly lodged and prom- 
enaded; but they considered that that would be hardly 
worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave 
departure from custom, and therefore likely to make 
talk. A departure from custom—that settled it; it 
was a nation capable of committing any crime but 
that. The servants said they would follow the fashion, 
a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observ- 
ance; they would scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms 
and halls, and then the evidence of the aristocratic 
visitation would be no longer visible. It was a kind of 
satire on Nature: it was the scientific method, the 
geologic method; it deposited the history of the family 
in a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig 
through it and tell by the remains of each period what 
changes of diet the family had introduced successively 
for a hundred years. 


The first thing we struck that day was a procession 
12 


172 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


of pilgrims. It was not going our way, but we joined 
it, nevertheless; for it was hourly being borne in 
upon me now, that if I would govern this country 
wisely, I must be posted in the details of its life, 
and not at second hand, but by personal observation 
and scrutiny. 

This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer’s in 
this: that it had in it a sample of about all the upper 
occupations and professions the country could show, 
and a corresponding variety of costume. There were 
young men and old men, young women and old 
women, lively folk and grave folk. They rode upon 
mules and horses, and there was not a side-saddle in 
the party; for this specialty was to remain unknown in 
England for nine hundred years yet. 

It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious, 
happy, merry and full of unconscious coarsenesses and 
innocent “indecencies. What they regarded as the 
merry tale went the continual round and caused no 
more embarrassment than it would have caused in the 
best English society twelve centuries later. Practical 
jokes worthy of the English wits of the first quarter of 
the far-off nineteenth century were sprung here and 
there and yonder along the line, and compelled the 
delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright 
remark was made at one end of the procession and 
started on its travels toward the other, you could note 
its progress all the way by the sparkling spray of 
laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along; 
and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake. 

Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage, 
and she posted me. She said: 

‘* They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be 
blessed of the godly hermits and drink of the miracu- 
lous waters and be cleased from sin.’’ 

** Where is this watering place?’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 173 


**It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders 
of the land that hight the Cuckoo Kingdom.”’ 

**Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?’’ 

**Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so. Of 
old time there lived there an abbot and his monks. 
Belike were none in the world more holy than these; 
for they gave themselves to study of pious books, and 
speke not the one to the other, or indeed to any, and 
ate decayed herbs and naught thereto, and slept hard, 
and prayed much, and washed never; also they wore 
the same garment until it fell from their bodies through 
age and decay. Right so came they to be known of 
aii the world by reason of these holy austerities, and 
visited by rich and poor, and reverenced.”’ 

o Proceeds’! 

** But always there was lack of water there. Whereas, 
upon a time, the holy abbot prayed, and for answer 
a great stream of clear water burst forth by miracle 
in a desert place. Now were the fickle monks tempted 
of the Fiend, and they wrought with their abbot un- 
ceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he would 
construct a bath; and when he was become aweary and 
might not resist more, he said have ye your will, then, 
and granted that they asked. Now mark thou what 
*tis to forsake the ways of purity the which He loveth, 
and wanton with such as be worldly and an offense. 
These monks did enter into the bath and come thence 
washed as white as snow; and lo, in that moment His 
sign appeared, in miraculous rebuke! for His insulted 
waters ceased to flow, and utterly vanished away.”’ 

‘*They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that 
kind of crime is regarded in this country.’’ 

‘** Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had 
been of perfect life for long, and differing in naught 
from the angels. Prayers, tears, torturings of the 
flesh, all was vain to beguile that water to flow again. 


174 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votive 
candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them; 
and all in the land did marvel.’’ 

‘* How odd to find that even this industry has its 
financial panics, and at times sees its assignats and 
greenbacks languish to zero, and everything come to a 
standstill. Go on, Sandy.’’ : 

‘And so upon a time, after year and day, the good 
abbot made humble surrender and destroyed the bath. 
And behold, His anger was in that moment appeased, 
and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even 
unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that 
generous measure.’’ 

** Then I take it nobody has washed since.”’ 

** He that would essay it could have his halter free; 
yes, and swiftly would he need it, too.’’ 

‘** The community has prospered since ?’’ 

** Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle 
went abroad into all lands. From every land came 
monks to join; they came even as the fishes come, in 
shoals; and the monastery added building to building, 
and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms 
and took them in. And nuns came, also; and more 
again, and yet more; and built over against the mon- 
astery on the yon side of the vale, and added building 
to building, until mighty was that nunnery. And 
these were friendly unto those, and they joined their 
loving labors together, and together they built a fair 
great foundling asylum midway of the valley between.”’ 

-“* You spoke of some hermits, Sandy.’’ 

‘* These have gathered there from the ends of the 
earth. A hermit thriveth best where there be multi- 
tudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not find no hermit of no 
sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit of a kind 
he thinketh new and not to be found but in some far 
strange land, let him but scratch among the holes and 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court ty 


caves and swamps that line that Valley of Hoiiiess, 
and whatsoever be his breed, it skills not, he shall find 
a sample of it there.’’ 

I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat 
good-humored face, purposing to make myself agree- 
able and pick up some further crumbs of fact; but I 
had hardly more than scraped acquaintance with him 
when he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, in 
the immemorial way, to that same old anecdote — the 
one Sir Dinadan told me, what time I got into trouble 
with Sir Sagramor and was challenged of him on ac- 
count of it. I excused myself and dropped to the rear 
of the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence 
from this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day 
of broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggle 
and monotonous defeat; and yet shrinking from the 
change, as remembering how long eternity is, and how 
many have wended thither who know that anecdote. 

Early in the afternoon we overtook another proces- 
sion of pilgrims; but in this one was no merriment, no 
jokes, no laughter, no playful ways, nor any happy 
giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both were 
here, both age and youth; gray old men and women, 
strong men and women of middle age, young hus- 
bands, young wives, little boys and girls, and three 
babies at the breast. Even the children were smileless ; 
there was not a face among all these half a hundred 
people but was cast down, and bore that set expression 
of hopelessness which is bred of long and hard trials 
and. old acquaintance with despair. They were slaves. 
Chains led from their fettered feet and their manacled 
hands to a sole-leather belt about their waists; and all 
except the children were also linked together in a file, 
six feet apart, by a single chain which led from collar 
to collar all down the line. They were on foot, and 
had tramped three hundred miles in eighteen days, 


176 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


upon the cheapest odds and ends of food, and stingy 
rations of that. They had slept in these chains every 
night, bundled together like swine. They had upon 
their bodies some poor rags, but they could not be 
said to be clothed. Their irons had chafed the skin 
from their ankles and made sores which were ulcerated 
and wormy. Their naked feet were torn, and none 
walked without a limp. Originally there had been a 
hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been 
sold on the trip. The trader in charge of them rode 
a horse and carried a whip with a short handle and a 
long heavy lash divided into several knotted tails at the 
end. With this whip he cut the shoulders of any that 
tottered from weariness and pain, and straightened 
them up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed his 
desire without that. None of these poor creatures 
looked up as we rode along by; they showed no con- 
sciousness of our presence. And they made no sound 
but one; that was the dull and awful clank of their 
chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three 
burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved 
in a cloud of its own making. 

All these faces were gray with a coating of dust. 
One has seen the like of this coating upon furniture in 
unoccupied houses, and has written his idle thought in 
it with his finger. I was reminded of this when I 
noticed the faces of some of those women, young 
mothers carrying babes that were near to death and 
freedom, how a something in their hearts was written 
in the dust upon their faces, plain to see, and lord, how 
plain to read! for it was the track of tears. One of 
these young mothers was but a girl, and it hurt me te 
the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it was 
come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast 
that ought not to know trouble yet, but only the glad- 
ness of the morning of life; and no doubt-— 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 177 


She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down 
came the lash and flicked a flake of skin from her 
naked shoulder. It stung me as if I had been hit in- 
stead. The master halted the file and jumped from his 
horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and said 
she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and 
as this was the last chance he should have, he would 
settle the account now. She dropped on her knees 
and put up her hands and began to beg, and cry, and 
implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave no 
attention. He snatched the child from her, and then 
made the men-slaves who were chained before and 
behind her throw her on the ground and hold her there 
and expose her body; and then he laid on with his 
lash like a madman till her back was flayed, she shriek- 
ing and struggling the while piteously. One of the 
men who was holding her turned away his face, and 
for this humanity he was reviled and flogged. 

All our pilgrims looked on and commented —: on the 
expert way in which the whip was handled. They 
were too much hardened by lifelong everyday familiar- 
ity with slavery to ‘notice that there was anything else 
in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what 
slavery could do, in the way of ossifying what one may 
call the superior lobe of human feeling; for these pil- 
erims were kind-hearted people, and they would not 
have allowed that man to treat a horse like that. 

I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves 
free, but that would not do. I must not interfere too 
much and get myself a name for riding over the 
country’s laws and the citizen’s rights roughshod. If 
I lived and prospered I would be the death of slavery, 
that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so 
that when I became its executioner it should be by 
command of the nation. 

Just neo was the wayside shop of a smith; and now 


178 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


arrived a landed proprietor who had bought this girl a 
few miles back, deliverable here where her irons could 
be taken off. They were removed; then there was a 
squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to 
which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the 
girl was delivered from her irons, she flung herself, all 
tears and frantic sobbings, into the arms of the slave 
who had turned away his face when she was whipped. 
He strained her to his breast, and smothered her 
face and the child’s with kisses, and washed them 
with the rain of his tears. I suspected. I inquired. 
Yes, I was right; it was husband and wife. They had 
to be torn apart by force; the girl had to be dragged 
avray, and she struggled and fought and shrieked like 
one gone mad till a turn of the road hid her from 
sight; and even after that, we could still make out the 
fading plaint of those receding shrieks. And the hus- 
band and father, with his wife and child gone, never to 
be seen by him again in life? — well, the look of him 
one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I 
knew I should never get his picture out of my mind 
again, and there it is to this day, to wring my heart- 
strings whenever I think of it. 

We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall, 
and when I rose next morning and looked abroad, I 
was ware where a knight came riding in the golden 
glory of the new day, and recognized him for knight 
of mine — Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in the 
gentlemen’s furnishing line, and his missionarying 
specialty was plug hats. He was clothed all in steel, 
in the beautifulest armor of the time — up to where his 
helmet ought to have been; but he hadn’t any helmet, 
he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was as ridiculous a 
spectacle as one might want to see. It was another of 
my surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthood 
by making it grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana’s sad- 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 179 


dle was hung about with leather hat boxes, and every 
time he overcame a wandering knight he swore him 
into my service and fitted him with a plug and made 
him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sit 
Ozana and get his news. 

** How is trade?’’ I asked. 

** Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet 
were they sixteen whenas I got me from Camelot.’’ 

*“Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana. 
Where have you been foraging of late?’’ 

‘Tam but now come from the Valley of Holiness, 
please you sir.’’ 

**I am pointed for that place myself. Is there 
anything stirring in the monkery, more than com- 
mon?’’ 

** By the mass ye may not question it!....Give him 
good feed, boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy 
crown; so get ye lightly to the stable and do even as I 
ey Bets Sir, it is parlous news I bring, and—be 
these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, good 
folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith it 
concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye 
will not find, and seek that ye will seek in vain, my life 
being hostage for my word, and my word and message 
being these, namely: That a hap has happened where. 
of the like has not been seen no more but once this 
two hundred years, which was the first and last time 
that that said misfortune strake the holy valley in that 
form by commandment of the Most High whereto by 
reasons just and causes thereunto contributing, wherein 
the matter —’’ 

‘* The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!’’ This 
shout burst from twenty pilgrim mouths at once. 

**'Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it, 
even when ye spake.’’ 

i ee mebody been washing again?’ 


180 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘** Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It is 
thought to be some other sin, but none wit what.”’ 

‘* How are they feeling about the calamity ?”’ 

**None may describe it in words. The fount is 
these nine days dry. The prayers that did begin then, 
and the lamentations in sackcloth and ashes, and the 
holy processions, none of these have ceased nor night 
nor day; and so the monks and the nuns and the 
foundlings be all exhausted, and do hang up prayers 
writ upon parchment, sith that no strength is left in 
man to lift up voice. And at last they sent for thee, 
Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and if you 
could not come, then was the messenger to fetch 
Merlin, and he is there these three days now, and 
saith he will fetch that water though he burst the globe 
and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish it; and right 
bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his 
hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff 
of moisture hath he started yet, even so much as might 
qualify as mist upon a copper mirror an ye count not 
the barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt sun and sun 
over the dire labors of his task; and if ye—”’ 

Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I 
showed to Sir Ozana these words which I had written 
on the inside of his hat: Chemtcal Department, Labor- 
atory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of first 
size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with the 
proper complementary details —and two of my trained 
assistants.’’ And I said: 

**Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly, 
brave knight, and show the writing to Clarence, and 
tell him to have these required matters in the Valley of 
rioliness with all possible dispatch.”’ 

‘© T will well, Sir Boss,’’ and he was off. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE HOLY FOUNTAIN | 


HE pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they 
would have acted differently. They had comea 
long and difficult journey, and now when the journey 
was nearly finished, and they learned that the main 
thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they 
didn’t do as horses or cats or angle-worms would 
probably have done—turn back and get at something 
profitable — no, anxious as they had before been to 
see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as 
forty times as anxious now to see the place where it 
had used tec se. There is no accounting for human 
beings. 

We made good time; and a couple of hours before 
sunset we stood upon the high confines of the Valley 
of Holiness, and our eyes swept it from end to end 
and noted its features. That is, its large features. 
These were the three masses of buildings. They were 
distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy con- 
structions in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert 
—and was. Such a scene is always mournful, it is so 
impressively still, and looks so steeped in death. But 
there was a sound here which interrupted the stillness 
only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint far 
sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the 
passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly 

( 181) 


182 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


knew whether we heard it with our ears or with our 
spirits. 

We reached the monastery before dark, and there 
the males were given lodging, but the women were sent 
over to the nunnery. The bells were close at hand 
now, and their solemn booming smote upon the ear 
like a message of doom. A superstitious despair pos- 
sessed the heart of every monk and published itself 
in his ghastly face. Everywhere, these black-robed, 
soft-sandaled, tallow-visaged specters appeared, flitted 
about and disappeared, noiseless as the creatures of a 
troubled dream, and as uncanny. 

The old abbot’s joy to see me was pathetic. Even 
to tears; but he did the shedding himself. He said: 

** Delay not, son, but get to thy saving work. An 
we bring not the water back again, and soon, we are 
ruined, and the good work of two hundred years must 
end. And see thou do it with enchantments that be 
holy, for the Church will not endure that work in her 
cause be done by devil’s magic.’’ 

‘“When I work, Father, be sure there will be na 
devil’s work connected with it I shall use no arts 
that come of the devil, and no elements not createc 
by the hand of God. But is Merlin working strictly 
on pics lines?”’ 

** Ah, he said he would, my son, he said he would, 
and took oath to make his vromise good.’’ 

‘* Well, in that case, let him proceed.’’ 

‘** But surely you will not sit idle by, but help?”’ 

‘* Tt will not answer to mix methods, Father; neither 
would it be professional courtesy. Two of a trade 
must not underbid each other. We might as well cut 
rates and be done with it; it would arrive at that in 
the end. Merlin has the contract; no other magician 
can touch it till he throws it up.’”’ 

** But I will take it from him; it is a terrible emer 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 183 


gency and the act is thereby justified. And if it were 
not so, who will give law to the Church? The Church 
giveth law to all; and what she wills to do, that she 
may do, hurt whom it may. I will take it from him; 
you shall begin upon the moment.’’ 

“‘It may not be, Father. No doubt, as you say, 
where power is supreme, one can do as one likes and 
suffer no injury; but we poor magicians are not se 
situated. Merlin is a very good magician in a small 
way, and has quite a neat provincial reputation. He 
is strugeling along, doing the best he can, and it would 
not be etiquette for me to take his job until he himself 
abandons it.’’ 

The abbot’s face lighted. 

** Ah, that is simple. There are ways to persuade 
him to abandon it.”’ 

** No-no, Father, it skills not, as these people say. 
If he were persuaded against his will, he would load 
that well with a malicious enchantment which would 
balk me until I found out its secret. It might take a 
month. I could set up a little enchantment of mine 
which I cal! the telephone. and he could not find out 
its secret in a hundred vears. Yes, you perceive, he 
might block me fora month. Would you like to risk a 
month in a dry time like this?’’ 

‘*‘A month! The mere thought of it maketh me to 
shudder. Have it thy way, my son. But my heart is 
heavy with this disappointment. Leave me, and let 
me wear my spirit with weariness and waiting, even as 
I have done these ten long days, counterfeiting thus 
the thing that is called rest, the prone body making 
outward sign of repose where inwardly is none.’’ 

Of course, it would have been best, all round, for . 
Merlin to waive etiquette and quit and call it half a 
day, since he would never be able to start that water, 
for he was a true magician of the time; which is to 


184 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


say, the big miracles, the ones that gave him his repu- 
tation, always had the luck to be performed when 
nobody but Merlin was present; he couldn’t start this 
well with all this crowd around to see; a crowd was as 
bad for a magician’s miracle in that day as it was for a 
spiritualist’s miracle in mine; there was sure to be 
some skeptic on hand to turn up the gas at the crucial 
moment and spoil everything. But I did not want 
Merlin to retire from the job until I was ready to take 
hold of it effectively myself; and I could not do that 
until I got my things from Camelot, and that would 
take two or three days. 

My presence gave the monks hope, and cheered 
them up a good deal; insomuch that they ate a square 
meal that night for the first time in ten days. As 
soon as their stomachs had been properly reinforced 
with food, their spirits began to rise fast; when the 
mead began to go round they rose faster. By the 
time everybody was half-seas over, the holy com- 
munity was in good shape to make a night of it; so 
we stayed by the board and put it through on that 
line. Matters got to be very jolly. Good old ques- 
tionable stories were told that made the tears run down 
and cavernous mouths stand wide and the round bellies 
shake with laughter; and questionable songs were 
bellowed out in a mighty chorus that drowned the 
boom of the tolling bells. 

At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was the 
success of it. Not right off, of course, for the native 
of those islands does not, as a rule, dissolve upon the 
early applications of a humorous thing; but the fifth 
time I told it, they began to crack in places; the eight 
time I told it, they began to crumble; at the twelfth 
repetition they fell apart in chunks; and at the fifteenth 
they disintegrated, and I got a broom and swept them 
up. This language is figurative. Those islanders-— 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 185 


well, they are slow pay at first, in the matter of return 
for your investment of effort, but in the end they make 
the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast. 

I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was 
there, enchanting away like a beaver, but not raising 
the moisture. He was not in a pleasant humor; and 
every time I hinted that perhaps this contract was a 
shade too hefty for a novice he unlimbered his tongue 
and cursed like a hishop—French bishop of the 
Regency days, I mean. 

Matters were about as I expected to find them. 
Tne ‘‘ fountain ’’ was an ordinary well, it had been dug 
in the ordinary way, and stoned up in the ordinary 
way. There was no miracle about it. Even the lie 
that had created its reputation was not miraculous; I 
could have told it myself, with one hand tied behind 
me. The well was in a dark chamber which stood in 
the center of a cut-stone chapel, whose walls were 
hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that would 
have made a chromo feel good; pictures historically 
commemorative of curative miracies which nad been 
achieved by the waters when nobody was looking. 
That is, nobody but angels; they are always on deck 
when there is a miracle to the fore—so as to get put 
in the picture, perhaps. Angels are as fond of that as 
a fire company; look at the old masters. 

The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps; the 
water was drawn with a windlass and chain by monks, 
and poured into troughs which delivered it into stone 
reservoirs outside in the chapel—when there was 
water to draw, I mean—and none but monks could 
enter the weil-chamber. I entered it, for I had tempo- 
zary authority to do so, by courtesy of my professional 
brother and subordinate. But he hadn’t entered it 
Bimself. He did everything by incantations; he never 
worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and 


186 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


used his eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could 
have cured the well by natural means, and then turned 
it into a miracle in the customary way; but no, he was 
an old numskull, a magician who believed in his own 
magic; and no magician can thrive who is handicapped 
with a superstition like that. 

I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak; that 
some of the wall stones near the bottom had fallen and 
exposed fissures that allowed the water to escape. Il 
measured the chain—98 feet. Then I called in a 
couple of monks, locked the door, took a candle, and 
made them lower me in the bucket. When tke chain 
was all paid out, the candle confirmed my suspicion; 
a considerable section of the wall was gone, exposing a 
good big fissure. 

I almost regretted that my theory about the weil’s 
trouble was correct, because I had another one that 
had a showy point or two about it fora miracle. I 
remembered that in America, many centuries later, 
when an oil well ceased to flow, they used to blast it 
out with a dynamite torpedo. If I should find this 
well dry and no explanation of it, I could astonish 
these people most nobly by having a person of no 
especial value drop a dynamite bomb into it. It was 
my idea to appoint Merlin. However, it was plain 
that there was no occasion for the bomb. One cannot 
have everything the way he would like it. A man has 
no business to be depressed by a disappointment, any- 
way; he ought to make up his mind to get even. 
That is what I did. I said to myself, I am in no 
hurry, I can wait; that bomb will come good yet. 
And it did, too. 

When I was above ground again, I turned out the 
monks, and let down a fish-line; the well was a hun- 
dred and fifty feet deep, and there was forty-one feet 
of water in it! I called in a monk and asked: 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 187 


** How deep is the well?’’ 

** That, sir, I wit not, having never been told.’’ 

** How does the water usually stand in it?’’ 

‘“ Near to the top, these two centuries, as the testi- 
mony goeth, brought down to us through our prede- 
cessors.’’ 

It was true— as to recent times at least— for there 
was witness to it, and better witness than a monk; 
only about twenty or thirty feet of the chain showed 
wear and use, the rest of it was unworn and rusty. 
What had happened when the well gave out that other 
time? Without doubt some practical person had come 
along and mended the leak, and then had come up and 
told the abbot he had discovered by divination that if 
the sinful bath were destroyed the well would flow 
again. The leak had befallen again now, and these 
children would have prayed, and processioned, and 
tolled their bells for heavenly succor till they all dried 
up and blew away, and no innocent of them all would 
ever have thought to drop a fish-line into the well or 
go down in it and find out what was really the matter, 
Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things to 
get away from in the world. It transmits itself like 
physical form and feature; and for a man, in those 
days, to have had an idea that his ancestors hadn’t 
had, would have brought him under suspicion of being 
illegitimate. I said to the monk: 

**It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry 
well, but we will try, if my brother Merlin fails. 
Brother Merlin is a very passable artist, but only in the 
parlor-magic line, and he may not succeed; in fact, is 
not likely to succeed. But that should be nothing to 
his discredit; the man that can do ¢#zs kind of miracle 
knows enough to keep hotel.’’ 

**Hotel? I mind not to have heard —’’ 

‘, Of hotel? It’s what you call hostel. The man 


188 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


that can do this miracle can keep hostel. I can do this 
miracle; I shall do this miracle; yet I do not try to 
conceal from you that it is a miracle to tax the occult 
powers to the last strain.’’ 

‘None knoweth that truth better than the brother- 
hood, indeed; for it is of record that aforetime it was 
parlous difficult and took a year. Natheless, God send 
you good success, and to that end will we pray.”’ 

As a matter of business it was a good idea to get the 
notion around that the thing was difficult. Manya 
small thing has been made large by the right kind of 
advertising. That monk was filled up with the diffi- 
culty of this enterprise; he would fill up the others. 
In two days the solicitude would be booming. 

On my way home at noon, I met Sandy. She had 
been sampling the hermits. I said: 

**T would like to do that myself. This is Wednes- 
day. Is there a matinée?’’ 

‘* A which, please you, sir?’’ 

‘*Matinée. Do they keep open afternoons?’’ 

**'Who?’’ 

** The hermits, of course.’’ 

** Keep open?’’ 

*“Yes, keep open. Isn’t that plain enough? Do 
they knock off at noon?’’ 

** Knock off?’’ 

** Knock off? — yes, knock off. What is the matter 
with knock off? I never saw such a dunderhead; 
can’t you understand anything at all? In plain terms, 
do they shut up shop, draw the game, bank the 
fires —’’ 

** Shut up shop, draw —’’ 

‘** There, never mind, let it go; you make me tired. 
You can’t seem to understand the simplest thing.”’ 

‘‘IT would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me 
dole and sorrow that I fail, albeit sith I am but a 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 189 


simple damsel and taught of none, being from the 
cradle unbaptized in those deep waters of learning that 
do anoint with a sovereignty him that partaketh of that 
most noble sacrament, investing him with reverend 
state to the mental eye of the humble mortal who, by 
bar and lack of that great consecration seeth in his 
own unlearned estate but a symbol of that other sort 
of lack and loss which men do publish to the pitying 
eye with sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of 
grief do lie bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when 
such shall in the darkness of his mind encounter these 
golden phrases of high mystery, these shut-up-shops, 
and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires, it is but by the 
grace of God that he burst not for envy of the mind 
that can beget, and tongue that can deliver so great 
and mellow-sounding miracles of speech, and if there 
do ensue confusion in that humbler mind, and failure 
to divine the meanings of these wonders, then if so be 
this miscomprehension is not vain but sooth and true, 
wit ye well it is the very substance of worshipfui dear 
homage and may not lightly be misprized, nor had 
been, an ye had noted this complexion of mood 
and mind and understood that that I would I could 
not, and that I could not I might not, nor yet nor 
might zor could, nor might-not nor could-not, might 
be by advantage turned to the desired wou/d, and so I 
pray you mercy of my fault, and that ye will of your 
kindness and your charity forgive it, good my master 
and most dear lord.’’ 

I couldn’t make it all out — that is, the detaiis — but 
I got the general idea; and enough of it, too, to be 
ashamed. It was not fair to spring those nineteenth 
century technicalities upon the untutored infant of the 
sixth and then rail at her because she couldn’t get 
their drift; and when she was making the honest best 


drive at it she could, too, and no fault of hers that she 
13 


190 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


couldn’t fetch the home plate; and so I apologized. 
Then we meandered pleasantly away toward the hermit 
holes in sociable converse together, and better friends 
than ever. 

I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and 
shuddery reverence for this girl; nowadays whenever 
she pulled out from the station and got her train fairly 
started on one of those horizonless transcontinental 
sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that I was 
standing in the awful presence of the Mother of the 
German Language. I was so impressed with this, that 
sometimes when she began to empty one of these sen- 
tences on me I unconsciously took the very attitude of 
reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words had 
been water, I had been drowned, sure. She had ex- 
actly the German way; whatever was in her mind to 
be delivered, whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or 
a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she would get it 
into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary 
German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are 
going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of 
his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. 

We drifted from hermit to hermit all the afternoon. 
It was a most strange menagerie. The chief emulation 
among them seemed to be, to see which could manage 
to be the uncleanest and most prosperous with vermin. 
Their manner and attitudes were the last expression of 
complacent self-righteousness. It was ene anchorite’s 
pride to lie naked in the mud and let the insects bite 
him and blister him unmolested; it was another’s to 
lean against a rock, all day long, conspicuous to the 
admiration of the throng of pilgrims and pray; it was 
another’s to go naked and crawl around on all fours; 
it was another’s to drag about with him, year in and 
year out, eighty pounds of iron; it was another’s to 
never lie down when he slept, but to stand among the 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 191 


thorn-bushes and snore when there were pilgrims 
around to look; a woman, who had the white hair of 
age, and no other apparel, was black from crown to 
heel with forty-seven years of holy abstinence from 
water. Groups of gazing pilgrims stood around all 
and every of these strange objects, lost in reverent 
wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which 
these pious austerities had won for them from an 
exacting heaven. 

By and by we went to see one of the supremely 
great ones. He was a mighty celebrity; his fame had 
penetrated all Christendom; the noble and the re- 
nowned journeyed from the remotest lands on the 
gliabe to pay him reverence. His stand was in the 
center of the widest part of the valley; and it took all 
that space to hold his crowds. 

His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad 
platform on the top of it. He was now doing what he 
had been doing every day for twenty years up there — 
bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly almost to his 
feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with a 
stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions in 24 min- 
utes and 46 seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this 
power going to waste. It was one of the most useful 
motions in mechanics, the pedal movement; so I made 
a note in my memorandum book, purposing some day 
to apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a 
sewing machine with it. I afterward carried out that 
scheme, and got five years’ good service out of him; 
in which time he turned out upward of eighteen thou- 
sand first-rate tow-linen shirts, which was tena day. I 
worked him Sundays and all; he was going, Sundays, 
the same as week days, and it was no use to waste the 
power. These shirts cost me nothing but just the mere 
trifle for the materials—I furnished those myself, it 
would not have been right to make him do that — and 


192 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


they sold like smoke to pilgrims at a dollar and a half 
apiece, which was the price of fifty cows or a blooded 
race horse in Arthurdom. They were regarded as a 
perfect protection against sin, and advertised as such 
by my knights everywhere, with the paint-pot and 
stencil-plate; insomuch that there was not a cliff or a 
bowlder or a dead wall in England but you could read 
on it at a mile distance: 

‘* Buy the only genuine St. Stylite ; patronized by the 
Nobility. Patent applied for.’’ 

There was more money in the bisiness than one 
knew what to do with. As it extended, I brought out 
a line of goods suitable for kings, and a nobby thing 
for duchesses and that sort, with ruffles down the fore- 
hatch and the running-gear clewed up with a feather- 
stitch to leeward and then hauled aft with a back-stay 
and triced up with a half-turn in the standing rigging 
forward of the weather-gaskets. Yes, it was a daisy. 

But about that time I noticed that the motive power 
had taken to standing on one leg, and I found that 
there was something the matter with the other one; so 
I stocked the business and unloaded, taking Sir Bors 
de Ganis into camp financially along with certain of his 
friends; for the works stopped within a year, and the 
good saint got him to his rest. But he had earned it. 
I can say that for him. 

When I saw him that first time — however, his per- 
sonal condition will not quite bear description here. 
You can read it in the Lives of the Saints.* 


* All the details concerning the hermits, in this chapter, are from Lecky 
—but greatly modified. This book not being a history but only a tale, the 
majority of the historian’s frank details were too strong for reproduction in 
it.— EDITOR. ~ 


COLA POI ATI. 


RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN 


ATURDAY noon I went to the well and looked on 

a while. Merlin was still burning smoke-powders, 

and pawing the air, and muttering gibberish as hard as 

ever, but looking pretty down-hearted, for of course 

he had not started even a perspiration in that well yet. 
Finally I said: 

“How does the thing promise by this time, partner?” 

“Behold, I am even now busied with trial of the 
powerfulest enchantment known to the princes of the oc- 
cult arts in the lands of the East; an it fail me, naught 
can avail. Peace, until I finish.” 

He raised a smoke this time that darkened all the 
region, and must have made matters uncomfortable for 
the hermits, for the wind was their way, and it rolled 
down over their dens in a dense and billowy fog. He 
poured out volumes of speech to match, and contorted 
his body and sawed the air with his hands in a most 
extraordinary way. At the end of twenty minutes he 
dropped down panting, and about exhausted. Now 
arrived the abbot and several hundred monks and nuns, 
and behind them a multitude of pilgrims and a couple 
of acres of foundlings, all drawn by the prodigious smoke, 
and all in a grand state of excitement. The abbot 
inquired anxiously for results. Merlin said: 

“Tf any labor of mortal might break the spell that 

13 (193) 


194 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


binds these waters, this which I have but just essayed 
had done it. It has failed; whereby I do now know 
that that which I had feared is a truth established; the 
sign of this failure is, that the most potent spirit known 
to the magicians of the East, and whose name none 
may utter and live, has laid his spell upon this well. 
The mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can 
penetrate the secret of that spell, and without that 
secret none can break it. ‘The water will flow no more 
forever, good Father. I have done what man could. 
Suffer me to go.’’ 

Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of a 
consternation. He turned to me with the signs of it in 
his face, and said: 

‘*Ye have heard him. Is it true?’’ 

ine att Of stis.: 

** Not all, then, not all! What part is true?’’ 

‘* That that spirit with the Russian name has put his 
spell upon the well.’”’ 

** God’s wownds, then are we ruined 

** Possibly.’’ 

‘* But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?’’ 

mal nat iSriti’* 

** Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none 
can break the spell —’’ 

** Yes, when he says that, he says what isn’t neces- 
sarily true. There are conditions under which an effort 
to break it may have some chance—that is, some 
small, some trifling chance — of success,’’ 

' “*The conditions —’’ 

‘*Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I 
want the well and the surroundings for the space of 
half a mile, entirely to myself from sunset to-day until 
J remove the ban—and nobody allowed to cross the 
ground but by my authority.’’ 

** Are these all?’’ 


9? 
! 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 195 


és Yes. 93 

** And you have no fear to try?’’ 

**Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one 
may also succeed. One can try, and I am ready to 
chance it. I have my conditions?’’ 

*“These and all others ye may name. I will issue 
commandment to that effect.’’ 

**Wait,’’ said Merlin, with an evil smile. ‘‘ Ye 
wit that he that would break this spell must know that 
Spirit’s name?’’ 

“Yes, I know his name.’’ 

*“*And wit you also that to know it skills not of 
itself, but ye must likewise pronounce it? Ha-ha! 
Knew ye that?’’ 

** Yes, I knew that, too.’’ 

“You had that knowledge! Art a foolp Are ye 
ininded to utter that name and die?’’ 

*“Utter it? Why certainly. I would utter it if it 
was Welsh.” 

‘Ye are even a dead man, then; and I go to 
tell Arthur.”’ 

*“That’s all right. Take your gripsack and get 
along. The thing for you to do is to go home and 
‘vork the weather, John W. Merlin.’’ 

It was a home shot, and it made him wince; for he 
was the worst weather-failure in the kingdom. When- 
ever he ordered up the danger-signals along the coast 
there was a week’s dead calm, sure, and every time he 
prophesied fair weather it rained brickbats. But I kept 
him in the weather bureau right along, to undermine 
nis reputation. However, that shot raised his bile, and 
instead of starting home to report my death, he said 
he would remain and enjoy it. 

My two experts arrived in the evening, and pretty 
well fagged, for they had traveled double tides. They 
had pack-mules along, and had brought everything I 

M, 


196 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


needed —tools, pump, lead pipe, Greek fire, sheaves 
of big rockets, roman candles, colored fire sprays, 
electric apparatus, and a lot of sundries — everything 
necessary for the stateliest kind of a miracle. They 
got their supper and a nap, and about midnight we 
sallied out through a solitude so wholly vacant and 
complete that it quite overpassed the required vondi- 
tions. We took possession of the well and its sur- 
roundings. My boys were experts in all sorts of 
things, from the stoning up of a well to the construct- 
ing of a mathematical instrument. An hour before 
sunrise we had that leak mended in ship-shape fashion, 
and the water began to rise. Then we stowed our fire- 
works in the chapel, locked up the place, and went 
home to bed. 

Before the noon mass was over, we were at the well 
‘again; for there was a deal to do yet, and I was deter- 
mined to spring the miracle before midnight, for busi- 
ness reasons: for whereas a miracle worked for the 
Church on a week-day is worth a good deal, it is worth 
six times as much if you get it in ona Sunday. In 
nine hours the water had risen to its customary level; 
that is to say, it was within twenty-three feet of the 
top. We put in a little iron pump, one of the first 
turned out by my works near the capital; we bored 
into a stone reservoir which stood against the outer 
wall of the well-chamber and inserted a section of lead 
pipe that was long enough to reach to the door of the 
chapel and project beyond the threshold, where the 
gushing water would be visible to the two hundred and 
fifty acres of people I was intending should be present 
on the flat plain in front of this little holy hillock at 
the proper time. 

We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead and 
heisted this hogshead to the flat roof of the chapel, 
where we clamped it down fast, poured in gunpowder 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 197 


till it lay loosely an inch deep on the bottom, then we 
stood up rockets in the hogshead as thick as they 
could loosely stand, all the different breeds of rockets 
there are; and they made a portly and imposing sheaf, 
I can tell you. We grounded the wire of a pocket 
electrical battery in that powder, we placed a whole 
magazine of Greek fire on each corner of the roof — 
blue on one corner, green on another, red on another, 
and purple on the last—and grounded a wire in each. 

About two hundred yards off, in the flat, we built a 
pen of scantlings, about four feet high, and laid planks 
on it, and so made a platform. We covered it with 
swell tapestries borrowed for the occasion, and topped 
it off with the abbot’s own throne. When you are 
going to doa miracle for an ignorant race, you want 
to get in every detail that will count; you want to 
make all the properties impressive to the public eye; 
you want to make matters comfortable for your head 
guest; then you can turn yourself loose and play your 
effects for all they are worth. I know the value of 
these things, for I know human nature. You can’t 
throw too much style into a miracle. It costs trouble, 
and work, and sometimes money; but it pays in the 
end. Well, we brought the wires to the ground at the 
chapel, and then brought them under the ground to 
the platform, and hid the batteries there. We puta 
rope fence a hundred feet square around the platform 
to keep off the common multitude, and that finished 
the work. My idea was, doors open at 10:30, per- 
formance to begin at 11:25 sharp. I wished I could 
charge admission, but of course that wouldn’t answer. 
I instructed my boys to be in the chapel as early as 
10, before anybody was around, and be ready to maz 
the pumps at the proper time, and make the fur fly. 
Then we went home to supper. 

The news of the disaster to the weil had traveled far 


198 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


by this time; and now for two or three days a steady 
avalanche of people had been pouring into the valley. 
The lower end of the valley was become one huge 
camp; we should have a good house, no question 
about that. riers went the rounds early in the eve- 
ning and announced the coming attempt, which put 
every pulse up to fever heat. They gave notice that 
the abbot and his official suite would move in state and 
occupy the platform at 10:30, up to which time all the 
region which was under my ban must be clear; the 
bells would then cease from tolling, and this sign 
should be permission to the multitudes to close in and 
take their places. 

I was at the platform and all ready to do the honors 
when the abbot’s solemn procession hove in sight— 
which it did not do till it was nearly to the rope fence, 
because it was a starless black night and no torches 
permitted. With it came Merlin, and took a front seat 
on the platform; he was as good as his word for once. 
One could not see the multitudes banked together be- 
yond the ban, but they were there, just the same. 
The moment the bells stopped, those banked masses 
broke and poured over the line like a vast black wave, 
and for as much as a half hour it continued to flow, 
and then it solidified itself, and you could have walked 
upon a pavement of human heads to — well, miles. 

We had a solemn stage-wait, now, for about twenty 
minutes —a thing I had counted on for effect; it is 

always good to let your audience have a chance to 
-work up its expectancy. At length, out of the silence 
a noble Latin chant— men’s voices — broke and 
swelled up and rolled away into the night, a majestic 
tide of melody. I had put that up, too, and it was one 
of the best effects I ever invented. When it was finished 
I stood up on the platform and extended my hands 
abroad, for two minutes, with my face uplifted —that 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 499 


always produces a dead hush—and then slowly pro- 
nounced this ghastly word with a kind of awfulness which 
caused hundreds to tremble, and many women to faint: 

**Gonstantinopolitanischerdudelsackspieifenmachersgesellschatft :”’ 

Just as I was moaning out the closing hunks of that 
word, I touched off one of my electric connections, 
and all that murky world of people stood revealed in a 
hideous blue glare! It was immense —that effect! 
Lots of people shrieked, women curled up and quit in 
every direction, foundlings collapsed by platoons. The 
abbot and the monks crossed themselves nimbly and 
their lips fluttered with agitated prayers. Merlin held 
his grip, but he was astonished clear down to his 
corns; he had never seen anything to begin with that, 
before. Now was the time to pile in the effects. I 
lifted my hands and groaned out this word — as it were 
in agony: 

* Dibilistendynamittheaterkacsichenssprengungsationtacis: 

bersuchungen !’’ 
—and turned on the red fire! You should have heard 
that Atlantic of people moan and howl when that 
crimson hell joined the blue! After sixty seconds I 
shouted : 


“ Cransvaaliruppentropentransporttrampelthier: 
treibertranunasthracnentragoedic !’’ 


—and lit up the green fire! After waiting only forty 
seconds this time, I spread my arms abroad and 
thundered out the devastating syllables of this word of 
words: 


“Mekkamusclinanncnmassci- 
mMenchenmocrdermohremmutter: 
marmormonumentenmacher!”’ 


200 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


—and whirled on the purple glare! There they were, 
all going at once, red, blue, green, purple! — four 
furious volcanoes pouring vast clouds of radiant smoke 
aloft, and spreading a blinding rainbowed noonday to 
the furthest confines of that valley. In the distance 
one could see that fellow on the pillar standing rigid 
against the background of sky, his seesaw stopped for 
the first time in twenty years. I knew the boys were 
at the pump now and ready. So I said to the abbot: 

‘The time is come, Father. I am about to pro- 
nounce the dread name and command the spell to dis- 
solve. You want to brace up, and take hold of some- 
thing.’’ Then I shouted to the people: ‘* Behold, in 
another minute the spell will be broken, or no mortal 
can break it. If it break, all will know it, for you wil! 
see the sacred water gush from the chapel door!’’ 

I stood a few moments, to let the hearers have a 
chance to spread my announcement to those who 
couldn’t hear, and so convey it to the furthest ranks, 
then I made a grand exhibition of extra posturing and 
gesturing, and shouted: 

‘*Lo, I command the fell spirit that possesses the 
holy fountain to now disgorge into the skies all the 
infernal fires that still remain in him, and straightway 
dissolve his spell and flee hence to the pit, there to lie 
bound a thousand years. By his own dread name I 
command it— BGWJJILLIGKKK!”’ 

Then I touched off the hogshead of rockets, and a 
vast fountain of dazzling lances of fire vomited itself 
toward the zenith with a hissing rush, and burst in 
mid-sky into a storm of flashing jewels! One mighty 
groan of terror started up from the massed people — 
then suddenly broke into a wild hosannah of joy — for 
there, fair and plain in the uncanny glare, they saw 
the freed water leaping forth! The old abbot could not 
speak a word, for tears and the chokings in his throat; 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 201 


without utterance of any sort, he folded me in his arms 
and mashed me. It was more eloquent than speech. 
And harder to get over, too, in a country where there 
were really no doctors that were worth a damaged 
nickel. 

You should have seen those acres of people throw 
themselves down in that water and kiss it; kiss it, and 
pet it, and fondle it, and talk to it as if it were alive, 
and welcome it back with the dear names they gave 
their darlings, just as if it mad been a friend who was 
long gone away and lost, and was come home again. 
Yes, it was pretty to see, and made me think more of 
them than I had done before. 

I sent Merlin home ona shutter. He had caved in 
and gone down like a landslide when I pronounced that 
fearful name, and had never come to since. He never 
had heard that name before,— neither had I— but to 
him it was the right one. Any jumble would have 
been the right one. He admitted, afterward, that 
that spirit’s own mother could not have pronounced 
that name better than I did. He never could under- 
stand how I survived it, and I didn’t tell him. It is 
only young magicians that give away a secret like that. 
Merlin spent three months working enchantments to 
try to find out the deep trick of how to pronounce that 
name and outlive it. But he didn’t arrive. 

When I started to the chapel, the populace un- 
covered and fell back reverently to make a wide way 
for me, as if I had been some kind of a superior being 
—and I was. Iwas aware of that. I took along a 
night shift of monks, and taught them the mystery of 
the pump, and set them to work, for it was plain that 
a good part of the people out there were going to sit 
up with the water all night, consequently it was but 
right that they should have all they wanted of it. To 
those monks that pump was a good deal of a miracle 


202 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


itself, and they were full of wonder over it; and of 
admiration, too, of the exceeding effectiveness of its 
performance. 

It was a great night, an immense night. There was 
reputation in it. I could hardly get to sleep for glory- 
ing over it. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


A RIVAL MAGICIAN 


Y influence in the Valley of Holiness was some- 
thing prodigious now. It seemed worth while 
to try to turn it to some valuable account. The 
thought came to me the next morning, and was sug- 
gested by my seeing one of my knights who was in 
the soap line come riding in. According to history, 
the monks of this place two centuries before had been 
worldly minded enough to want to wash. It might be 
that there was a leaven of this unrighteousness still re- 
maining. So I sounded a Brother: 

‘“Wouldn’t you like a bath?’’ 

He shuddered at the thought—the thought of the 
peril of it to the well — but he said with feeling: 

** One needs not to ask that of a poor body who has 
not known that blessed refreshment sith that he was a 
boy. Would God I might wash me! but it may not 
be, fair sir, tempt me not; it is forbidden.’’ 

And then he sighed in such a sorrowful way that I 
was resolved he should have at least one layer of his 
real estate removed, if it sized up my whole influence 
and bankrupted the pile. So I went to the abbot and 
asked for a permit for this Brother. He blenched at 
the idea —I don’t mean that you could see him blench, 
for of course you couldn’t see it without you scraped 
him, and I didn’t care enough about it to scrape him, 

14 (202 ) 


204 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


but I knew the blench was there, just the same, and 
within a book-cover’s thickness of the surface, too— 
blenched, and trembled. He said: 

‘* Ah, son, ask aught else thou wilt, and it is thine, 
and freely granted out of a grateful heart — but this, 
oh, this! Would you drive away the blessed water 
again ?’’ 

‘*No, Father, I will not drive it away. I have 
mysterious knowledge which teaches me that there 
was an error that other time when it was thought the 
institution of the bath banished the fountain.’’ A 
large interest began to show up in the old man’s face. 
‘*My knowledge informs me that the bath was inno- 
cent of that misfortune, which was caused by quite 
another sort of sin.’’ 

‘‘ These are brave words — but — but right welcome, 
if they be true.’’ 

‘“They are true, indeed. Let me build the bath 
again, Father. Let me build it again, and the fountain 
shall flow forever.’’ 

‘“You promise this?-—you promise it? Say the 
word — say you promise it!’’ 

‘*T do promise it.’’ 

‘*Then will I have the first bath myself! Go— 
get ye to your work. Tarry not, tarry not, but go.’’ 

I and my boys were at work, straight off. The 
ruins of the old bath were there yet in the basement of 
the monastery, not a stone missing. They had been 
left just so, all these lifetimes, and avoided with a 
' pious fear, as things accursed. In two days we had it 
all done and the water in—a spacious pool of clear 
pure water that a body could swim in. It was running 
water, too. It came in, and went out, through the 
ancient pipes. The old abbot kept his word, and was 
the first to try it. He went down black and shaky, 
leaving the whole black community above troubled and 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 205 


worried and full of bodings; but he came back white 
and joyful, and the game was made! another triumph 
scored. 

It was a good campaign that we made in that Valley 
of Holiness, and I was very well satisfied, and ready to 
move on now, but I struck adisappointment. I caught 
a heavy cold, and it started up an old lurking rheuma- 
tism of mine. Of course the rheumatism hunted up 
my weakest place and located itself there. This was 
the place where the abbot put his arms about me and 
mashed me, what time he was moved to testify his 
gratitude to me with an embrace. 

When at last I got out, I was a shadow. But every- 
body was full of attentions and kindnesses, and these 
brought cheer back into my life, and were the right 
medicine to help a convalescent swiftly up toward 
health and strength again; so I gained fast. 

Sandy was worn out with nursing, so I made up my 
mind to turn out and go a cruise alone, leaving her at 
the nunnery to rest up. My idea was to disguise myself 
as a freeman of peasant degree and wander through 
the country a week or two on foot. This would give 
me achance to eat and lodge with the lowliest and 
poorest class of free citizens on equal terms. There 
was no other way to inform myself perfectly of their 
everyday life and the operation of the laws upon it. If 
I went among them as a gentleman, there would be 
restraints and conventionalities which would shut me 
out from their private joys and troubles, and I should 
get no further than the outside shell. 

One morning I was out on a long walk to get up 
muscle for my trip, and had climbed the ridge which 
bordered the northern extremity of the valley, when I 
came upon an artificial opening in the face of a low 
precipice, and recognized it by its location as a hermit- 
age which had often been pointed out to me froma 

1% 


206 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


distance as the den of a hermit of high renown for dirt 
and austerity. I knew he had lately been offered a 
situation in the Great Sahara, where lions and sandflies 
made the hermit-life peculiarly attractive and difficult, 
and had gone to Africa to take possession, so I thought 
I would look in and see how the atmosphere of this 
den agreed with its reputation. 

My surprise was great: the place was newly swept 
and scoured. Then there was another surprise. Back 
in the gloom of the cavern I heard the clink of a little 
bell, and then this exclamation: 

“* Hello, Central! Is this you, Camelot ?— Be- 
hold, thou mayst glad thy heart an thou hast faith to 
believe the wonderful when that it cometh in unex- 
pected guise and maketh itself manifest in impossible 
places— here standeth in the flesh his mightiness The 
Boss, and with thine own ears shall ye hear him 
speak !’’ 

Now what a radical reversal of things this was; what 
a jumbling together of extravagant incongruities; what 
a fantastic conjunction of opposites and irreconcilables 
—the home of the bogus miracle become the home of 
a real one, the den of a medizval hermit turned into a 
telephone office} 

The telephone clerk stepped into the light, and I 
recognized one of my young fellows. I said: 

‘“How long has this office been established here, 
Ulfius?”’ 

** But since midnight, fair Sir Boss, an it please you. 
We saw many lights in the valley, and so judged it 
well to make a station, for that where so many lights 
be needs must they indicate a town of goodly size.”’ 

‘“* Quite right. It isn’t a town in the customary 
sense, but it’s a good stand, anyway. Do you know 
where you are?’’ 

‘Of that Ihave had no time to make inquiry; for 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 207 


whenas my comradeship moved hence upon their 
labors, leaving me in charge, I got me to needed rest, 
purposing to inquire when I waked, and report the 
place’s name to Camelot for record.’’ 

** Well, this is the Valley of Holiness.”’ 

It didn’t take; I mean, he didn’t start at the name, 
as I had supposed he would. He merely said: 

**T will so report it.’’ 

** Why, the surrounding regions are filled with the 
noise of late wonders that have happened here! You 
didn’t hear of them?’’ 

**Ah, ye will remember we move by night, and 
avoid speech with all. We learn naught but that we 
get by the telephone from Camelot.”’ 

““Why ¢hey know all about this thing. Haven’t 
they told you anything about the great miracle of the 
restoration of a holy fountain?’’ 

**Oh, that? Indeed yes. But the name of this 
valley doth woundily differ from the name of ¢h#at one; 
indeed to differ wider were not pos—”’ 

** What was that name, then?’’ 

** The Valley of Hellishness.’’ 

** That explains it. Confound a telephone, anyway. 
It is the very demon for conveying similarities of sound 
that are miracles of divergence from similarity of sense. 
But no matter, you know the name of the place now. 
Call up Camelot.’’ 

He did it, and had Clarence sent for. It was good 
to hear my boy’s voice again. It was like being home. 
After some affectionate interchanges, and some account 
of my late illness, I said: 

*“'What is new?’’ 

**The king and queen and many of the court do 
start even in this hour, to go to your valley to pay 
pious homage to the waters ye have restored, and 
cleanse themselves of sin, and see the place where the 


208 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


infernal spirit spouted true hell-flames to the clouds — 
an ye listen sharply ye may hear me wink and hear me 
likewise smile a smile, sith ’twas I that made selection 
of those flames from out our stock and sent them by 
your order.”’ 

‘* Does the king know the way to this place ?”’ 

‘*The king?—no, nor to any other in his realms, 
mayhap; but the lads that holp you with your miracle 
will be his guide and lead the way, and appoint the 
places for rests at noons and sleeps at night.’’ 

‘* This will bring them here — when ?”’ 

‘* Mid-afternoon, or later, the third day.”’ 

** Anything else in the way of news?’’ 

‘The king hath begun the raising of the standing 
army ye suggested to him; one regiment is complete 
and officered.’’ 

‘* The mischief! I wanted a main hand in that my- 
self. There is only one body of men in the kingdom 
that are fitted to officer a regular army.”’ 

** Yes — and now ye will marvel to know there’s not 
so much as one West Pointer in that regiment.’’ 

** What are you talking about? Are you in earnest?’ 

**It is truly as I have said.’”’ 

** Why, this makes me uneasy. Who were chosen, 
and what was the method? Competitive examination ?’’ 

‘“Indeed, I know naught of the method. I but 
know this — these officers be all of noble family, and 
are born — what is it you call it? — chuckleheads.”’ 

‘* There’s something wrong, Clarence.’’ 

‘* Comfort yourself, then; for two candidates for a 
lieutenancy do travel hence with the king — young 
nobles both—and if you but wait where you are you 
will hear them questioned.’”’ 

‘* That is news to the purpose. I will get one West 
Pointer in, anyway. Mount a man and send him to 
that school with a message; let him kill horses, if 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 209 


necessary, but he must be there before sunset to-night 
and say —’’ 

** There is no need. I have laid a ground wire to 
the school. Prithee let me connect you with it.’’ 

It sounded good! In this atmosphere of telephones 
and lightning communication with distant regions, I 
was breathing the breath of life again after long suffo- 
cation. I realized, then, what a creepy, dull, inanimate 
horror this land had been to me all these years, and 
how I had been in such a stifled condition of mind as 
to have grown used to it almost beyond the power to 
notice it. 

I gave my order to the superintendent of the Acad- 
emy personally. I also asked him to bring me some 
paper and a fountain pen and a box or so of safety 
matches. Iwas getting tired of doing without these 
conveniences. I could have them now, as I wasn’t 
going to wear armor any more at present, and there- 
fore could get at my pockets. 

When I got back to the monastery, I found a thing 
of interest going on. The abbot and his monks were 
assembled in the great hall, observing with childish 
wonder and faith the performances of a new magician, 
a fresh arrival. His dress was the extreme of the 
fantastic; as showy and foolish as the sort of thing an 
Indian .medicine-man wears. He was mowing, and 
mumbling, and gesticulating, and drawing mystical 
figures in the air and on the floor,—the regular thing, 
you know. He was a celebrity from Asia—so he 
said, and that was enough. That’sort of evidence was 
as good as gold, and passed current everywhere. 

How easy and cheap it was to be a great magician 
on this fellow’s terms. His specialty was to tell you 
what any individual on the face of the globe was doing 
at the moment; and what he had done at any time in 
the past, mad what he would do at any time in the 


210 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


future. He asked if any would like to know what the 
Emperor of the East was doing now? The sparkling 
eyes and the delighted rubbing of hands made eloquent 
answer — this reverend crowd wozld like to know what 
that monarch was at, just as this moment. The fraud 
went through some more mummery, and then made 
grave announcement: 

‘*The high and mighty Emperor of the East doth at 
this moment put money in the palm of a holy begging 
friar— one, two, three pieces, and they be all of 
silver.’’ 

A buzz of admiring exclamations broke out, all 
around: 

‘“Tt is marvelous!’’ ‘* Wonderful!’’ ‘* What study, 
what labor, to have acquired a soamazing power as this !’’ 

Would they like to know what the Supreme Lord of 
Inde was doing? Yes. He told them what the 
Supreme Lord of Inde was doing. Then he told 
them what the Sultan of Egypt was at; also what the 
King of the Remote Seas was about. And so on and 
so on; and with each new marvel the astonishment at 
his accuracy rose higher and higher. They thought 
he must surely strike an uncertain place some time; 
but no, he never had to hesitate, he always knew, and 
always with unerring precision. I saw that if this thing 
went on I should lose my supremacy, this fellow would 
capture my following, I should be left out in the cold. 
I must put a cog in his wheel, and do it right away, 
too. I said: 

‘“ Tf I might ask, I should very greatly like to know 
what a certain person is doing.’’ 

‘* Speak, and freely. I will tell you.”’ 

‘“ It will be difficult — perhaps impossible.”’ 

‘* My art knoweth not that word. The more difficult 
it is, the more certainly will I reveal it to you.”’ 

You see, I was working up the interest. It was 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 211 


getting pretty high, too; you could see that by the 
craning necks all around, and the half-suspended 
breathing. So now I climaxed it: 

““If you make no mistake—if you tell me truly 
what I want to know—lI will give you two hundred 
silver pennies.’’ 

‘“The fortune is mine! I will tell you what you 
vould know.’’ 

“Then tell me what I am doing with my right hand.’’ 

**Ah-h!’’ There was a general gasp of surprise. 
It had not occurred to anybody in the crowd — that 
simple trick of inquiring about somebody who wasn’t 
ten thousand miles away. The magician was hit hard; 
it was an emergency that had never happened in his 
experience before, and it corked him; he didn’t know 
how to meet it. He looked stunned, confused; he 
couldn’t say a word. ‘‘Come,’’ I said, ‘‘ what are 
you waiting for? Is it possible you can ‘answer up, 
right off, and tell what anybody on the other side of 
the earth is doing, and yet can’t tell what a person is 
doing who isn’t three yards from you? Persons behind 
me know what I am doing with my right hand — they 
will indorse you if you tell correctly.’’ He was still 
dumb. ‘‘ Very well, I’ll tell you why you don’t speak 
up and tell; it is because you don’t know. Youa 
magician! Good friends, this tramp is a mere fraud 
and liar.’’ 

This distressed the monks and terrified them. They 
were not used to hearing these awful beings called 
names, and they did not know what might be the con- 
sequence. There was a dead silence now; superstitious 
bodings were in every mind. The magician began to 
pull his wits together, and when he presently smiled an 
easy, nonchalant smile, it spread a mighty relief 
around; for it indicated that his mood was not destruc- 
tive. aaa 


212 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘*It hath struck me speechless, the frivolity of this 
person’s speech. Let all know, if perchance there be 
any who know it not, that enchanters of my degree 
deign not to concern themselves with the doings of any 
but kings, princes, emperors, them that be born in the 
purple and them only. Had ye asked me what Arthur 
the great king is doing, it were another matter, and I 
had told ye; but the doings of a subject interest me 
not.’ 

‘*Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you said 
‘anybody,’ and so I supposed ‘ anybody’ included — 
well, anybody; that is, everybody.”’ 

‘“* It doth — anybody that is of lofty birth; and the 
better if he be royal.’’ 

‘* That, it meseemeth, might well be,’’ said the abbot, 
who saw his opportunity to smooth things and avert 
disaster, “‘ for it were not likely that so wonderful a 
eift as this would be conferred for the revelation of the 
concerns of lesser beings than such as be born near to 
the summits of greatness. Our Arthur the king —”’ 

‘“Would you know of him?’’ broke in the en- 
chanter. 

** Most gladly, yea, and gratefully.’’ 

Everybody was full of awe and interest again right 
away, the incorrigible idiots. They watched the incan- 
tations absorbingly, and looked at me with a ‘‘ There, 
now, what can you say to that?’’ air, when the 
announcement came: 

_‘** The king is weary with the chase, and lieth in his 
palace these two hours sleeping a dreamless sleep.’’ 

‘*God’s benison upon him!’’ said the abbot, and 
crossed himself; ‘‘ may that sleep be to the refresh- 
ment of his body and his soul.’’ 

‘*And so it might be, if he were sleeping,’’ I said, 
** but the king is not sleeping, the king rides.’’ 

Here was trouble again——-a conflict of authority. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 213 


Nobody knew which of us to believe; I still had some 
reputation left. The magician’s scorn was stirred, and 
he said: 

**Lo, I have seen many wonderful soothsayers and 
prophets and magicians in my life days, but none be- 
fore that could sit idle and see to the heart of things 
with never an incantation to help.’’ 

**'You have lived in the woods, and lost much by it. 
I use incantations myself, as this good brotherhood are 
aware — but only on occasions of moment.’’ 

When it comes to sarcasming, I reckon I know how 
to keep my end up. That jab made this fellow squirm. . 
The abbot inquired after the queen and the court, and 
got this information: 

** They be all on sleep, being overcome by fatigue, 
like as to the king.’’ 

I said: 

““'That is merely another lie. Half of them are 
about their amusements, the queen and the other half 
are not sleeping, they ride. Now perhaps you can 
spread yourself a little, and tell us where the king and 
queen and all that are this moment riding with them 
are going?”’ 

““They sleep now, as I said; but on the morrow 
they will ride, for they go a journey toward the sea.’’ 

‘* And where will they be the day after to-morrow at 
vespers?’’ 

‘Far to the north of Camelot, and half their journey 
will be done.’’ 

** That is another lie, by the space of a hundred and 
fifty miles. Their journey will not be merely half 
done, it will be all done, and they will be “eve, in this 
valley.”’ 

That was a noble shot! It set the abbot and the 
monks in a whirl of excitement, and it rocked the en- 
chanter to his base. I followed the thing right up: 


214 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘*TIf the king does not arrive, I will have myself 
ridden ona rail: if he does I will ride you ona rail 
instead.’’ 

Next day I went up to the telephone office and found 
that the king had passed through two towns that were 
on the line. I spotted his progress on the succeeding 
day in the same way. I kept these matters to myself. 
The third day’s reports showed that if he kept up his 
gait he would arrive by four in the afternoon. There 
was still no sign anywhere of interest in his coming; 
there seemed to be no preparations making to receive 
him in state; a strange thing, truly. Only one thing 
could explain this: that other magician had been cut- 
ting under me, sure. This was true. I asked a friend 
of mine, a monk, about it, and he said, yes, the 
magician had tried some further enchantments and 
found out that the court had concluded to make no 
journey at all, but stay at home. Think of that! 
Observe how much a reputation was worth in sucha 
country. These people had seen me do the very 
showiest bit of magic in history, and the only one 
within their memory that had a positive value, and yet 
here they were, ready to take up with an adventurer 
who could offer no evidence of his powers but his mere 
unproven word. 

However, it was not good politics to let the king 
come without any fuss and feathers at all, so I went 
down and drummed up a procession of pilgrims and 
_ smoked out a batch of hermits and started them out at 
two o’clock to meet him. And that was the sort of 
state he arrived in. The abbot was helpless with rage 
and humiliation when I brought him out on a balcony 
and showed him the head of the state marching in and 
never a monk on hand to offer him welcome, and no 
stir of life or clang of joy-bell to glad his spirit. He 
took one look and then flew to rouse out his forces, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 215 


The next minute the bells were dinning furiously, and 
the various buildings were vomiting monks and nuns, 
who went swarming in a rush toward the coming pro- 
cession; and with them went that magician— and he 
was on a rail, too, by the abbot’s order; and his 
reputation was in the mud, and mine was in the sky 
again. Yes, amancan keep his trademark current in 
such a country, but he can’t sit around and do it; he 


has got to be on deck and attending to business right 
along. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION 


HEN the king traveled for change of air, or made 
a progress, or visited a distant noble whom he 
wished to bankrupt with the cost of his keep, part of 
the administration moved with him. It was a fashion 
of the time. The Commission charged with the ex- 
amination of candidates for posts in the army came 
with the king to the Valley, whereas they could have 
transacted their business just as well at home. And 
although this expedition was strictly a holiday excur- 
sion for the king, he kept some of his business func- 
tions going just the same. He touched for the evil, as 
usual; he held court in the gate at sunrise and tried 
cases, for he was himself Chief Justice of the King’s 
Bench. 

He shone very well in this latter office. He wasa 
wise and humane judge, and he clearly did his honest 
best and fairest,— according to his lights. That isa 
large reservation. His lights—I mean his rearing — 
often colored his decisions.. Whenever there was a 
_ dispute between a noble or gentleman and a person of 
lower degree, the king’s leanings and sympathies were 
for the former class always, whether he suspected it or 
not. It was impossible that this should be otherwise. 
The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s 
moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world 
over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a 

(216) 


A fankee in King Arthur’s Court 217 


band of slaveholders under another name. This has a 
harsh sound, and yet should not be offensive to any — 
even to the noble himself — unless the fact itself be an 
offense: for the statement simply formulates a fact. 
The repulsive feature of slavery is the ¢kzug, not its 
name. One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of 
the classes that are below him to recognize —and in 
but indifferently modified measure —the very air and 
tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind these are 
the slaveholder’s spirit, the slaveholder’s blunted feel- 
ing. They are the result of the same cause in both 
cases: the possessor’s old and inbred custom of re- 
garding himself as a superior being. The king’s judg- 
ments wrought frequent injustices, but it was merely 
the fault of his training, his natural and unalterable 
sympathies. He was as unfitted for a judgeship as 
would be the average mother for the position of milk- 
distributor to starving children in famine-time; her 
own children would fare a shade better than the rest. 

One very curious case came before the king. A 
young girl, an orphan, who had a considerable estate, 
married a fine young fellow who had nothing. The 
sirl’s property was within a seigniory held by the 
Church. The bishop of the diocese, an arrogant scion 
of the great nobility, claimed the girl’s estate on the 
ground that she had married privately, and thus had 
cheated the Church out of one of its rights as lord of 
the seigniory — the one heretofore referred to as le droit 
du seigneur. The penalty of refusal or avoidance was 
confiscation. The girl’s defense was, that the lordship 
of the seigniory was vested in the bishop, and the par- 
ticular right here involved was not transferable, but 
must be exercised by the lord himself or stand vacated ; 
and that an older law, of the Church itself, strictly 
barred the bishop from exercising it. It was a very 
odd case, indeed. 


218 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


It reminded me of something I had read in my 
youth about the ingenious way in which the aldermen 
of London raised the money that built the Mansion 
House. <A person who had not taken the Sacrament 
according to the Anglican rite could not stand as a 
candidate for sheriff of London. Thus Dissenters were 
ineligible; they could not run if asked, they could not 
serve if elected. The aldermen, who without any 
question were Yankees in disguise, hit upon this neat 
device: they passed a by-law imposing a fine of £400 
upon any one who should refuse to be a candidate for 
sheriff, and a fine of £600 upon any person who, after 
being elected sheriff, refused to serve. Then they went 
to work and elected a lot of Dissenters, one after 
another, and kept it up until they had collected 
#15,000 in fines; and there stands the stately Man- 
sion House to this day, to keep the blushing citizen in 
mind of a long past and lamented day when a band of 
_ Yankees slipped into London and played games of the 
sort that has given their race a unique and shady 
reputation among all truly good and holy peoples that 
be in the earth. 

The girl’s case seemed strong to me; the bishop’s 
case was just as strong. I did not see how the king 
was going to get out of this hole. But he got out. I 
append his decision: 

‘* Truly I find small difficulty here, the matter being 
even a child’s affair for simpleness. An the young 
bride had conveyed notice, as in duty bound, to her 
- feudal lord and proper master and protector the bishop, 
she had suffered no loss, for the said bishop could have 
got a dispensation making him, for temporary con- 
veniency, eligible to the exercise of his said right, and 
thus would she have kept all she had. Whereas, fail- 
ing in her first duty, she hath by that failure failed in 
all; for whoso, clinging to a rope, severeth it above 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 219 


his hands, must fall; it being no defense to claim that 
the rest of the rope is sound, neither any deliverance 
from his peril, as he shall find. Pardy, the woman’s 
case is rotten at the source. It is the decree of the 
court that she forfeit to the said lord bishop all her 
goods, even to the last farthing that she doth possess, 
and be thereto mulcted in the costs. Next!’’ 

Here was a tragic end to a beautiful honeymoon not 
yet three months old. Poor young creatures! They 
had lived these three months lapped to the lips in 
worldly comforts. These clothes and trinkets they 
were wearing were as fine and dainty as the shrewdest 
stretch of the sumptuary laws allowed to people of 
their degree; and in these pretty clothes, she crying 
on his shoulder, and he trying to comfort her with 
hopeful words set to the music of despair, they went 
from the judgment seat out into the world homeless, 
bedless, breadless; why, the very beggars by the road- 
sides were not so poor as they. 

Well, the king was out of the hole; and on terms 
satisfactory to the Church and the rest of the aristoc- 
racy, no doubt. Men write many fine and plausible 
arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact re- 
mains that where every man in a State has a vote, 
brutal laws are impossible. Arthur’s people were of 
course poor material for a republic, because they had 
been debased so long by monarchy; and yet even they 
would have been intelligent enough to make short work 
of that law which the king had just been administering 
if it had been submitted to their full and free vote. 
There is a phrase which has grown so common in the 
world’s mouth that it has come to seem to have sense 
and meaning — the sense and meaning implied when it 
is used; that is the phrase which refers to this or that 
or the other nation as possibly being ‘‘ capable of self- 
government’’; and the implied sense of it is, that there 

15 


220 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


has’ been a nation somewhere, some time or other 
which wasxz’t capable of it— wasn’t as able to govern 
itself as some self-appointed specialists were or would 
be to govern it. The master minds of all nations, in 
all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the 
mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation 
only—not from its privileged classes; and so, no 
matter what the nation’s intellectual grade was, whether 
high or low, the bulk of its ability was in the long 
ranks of its nameless and its poor, and so it never saw 
the day that it had not the material in abundance 
whereby to govern itself. Which is to assert an always 
self-proven fact: that even the best governed and most 
free and most enlightened monarchy is still behind the 
best condition attainable by its people; and that the 
same is true of kindred governments of lower grades, 
all the way down to the lowest. 

King Arthur had hurried up the army business 
altogether beyond my calculations. I had not sup- 
posed he would move in the matter while I was away; 
and so I had not mapped out a scheme for determining 
the merits of officers; I had only remarked that it 
would be wise to submit every candidate to a sharp 
and searching examination; and privately I meant to 
put together a list of military qualifications that no- 
body could answer to but my West Pointers. That 
ought to have been attended to before I left; for the 
king was so taken with the idea of a standing army 
that he couldn’t wait but must get about it at once, 
and get up as good a scheme of examination as he 
could invent out of his own head. 

I was impatient to see what this was; and to show, 
too, how much more admirable was the one which I 
should display to the Examining Board. I intimated 
this, gently, to the king, and it fired his curiosity. 
When the Board was assembled, I followed him in, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 221 


and behind us came the candidates. One of these 
candidates was a bright young West Pointer of mine, 
and with him were a couple of my West Point pro- 
fessors. 

When I saw the Board, I did not know whether to 
cry or to laugh. The head of it was the officer known 
to later centuries as Norroy King-at-Arms! The two 
other members were chiefs of bureaus in his depart- 
ment; and all three were priests, of course; all officials 
who had to know how to read and write were priests. 

My candidate was called first, out of courtesy to 
me, and the head of the Board opened on him with 
official solemnity: 

** Name?’’ 

** Mal-ease.”’ 

EON FP?” 

** Webster.’’ 

** Webster — Webster. H’m—I—my memory 
faileth to recall the name. Condition?’’ 

** Weaver.”’ 

** Weaver ! — God keep us!”’ 

The king was staggered, from his summit to his 
foundations; one clerk fainted, and the others came 
near it. The chairman pulled himself together, and 
said indignantly: 

“It is sufficient. Get you hence.’’ 

But I appealed to the king. I begged that my can- 
didate might be examined. The king was willing, but 
the Board, who were all well-born folk, implored the 
king to spare them the indignity of examining the 
weaver’s son. I knew they didn’t know enough to 
examine him anyway, so I joined my prayers to theirs 
and the king turned the duty over to my professors, 
I had had a blackboard prepared, and it was put up 
now, and the circus began. It was beautiful to hear 


the lad lay out the science of war, and wallow in de- 
Ts 


222 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


tails of battle and siege, of supply, transportation, 
mining and countermining, grand tactics, big strategy 
and little strategy, signal service, infantry, cavalry, 
artillery, and all about siege guns, field guns, gatling 
guns, rifled guns, smooth bores, musket practice, 
revolver practice—and not a solitary word of it all 
could these catfish make head or tail of, you under- 
stand—and it was handsome to see him chalk off 
mathematical nightmares on the blackboard that would 
stump the angels themselves, and do it like nothing, 
too —all about eclipses, and comets, and solstices, and 
constellations, and mean time, and sidereal time, and 
dinner time, and bedtime, and every other imaginable 
thing above the clouds or under them that you could 
harry or bullyrag an enemy with and make him wish 
he hadn’t come — and when the boy made his military 
salute and stood aside at last, I was proud enough to 
hug him, and all those other people were so dazed they 
looked partly petrified, partly drunk, and wholly caught 
out and snowed under. I judged that the cake was ours, 
and by a large majority. 

Education is a great thing. This was the same 
youth who had come to West Point so ignorant that 
when I asked him, ‘‘If a general officer should have a 
horse shot under him on the field of battle, what ought 
he to do?’’ answered up naively and said: 

‘* Get up and brush himself.’”’ 

One of the young nobles was called up now. I 
thought I would question him a little myself. I said: 

‘*Can your lordship read?’’ 

His face flushed indignantly, and he fired this at me: 

‘“ Takest me for a clerk? I trowI am not of a blood 
that —’’ 

** Answer the question !’’ 

He crowded his wrath down and made out to answer 
*E Noi!’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 223 


** Can you write?’’ 

He wanted to resent this, too, but I said: 

‘You will confine yourself to the questions, and 
make no comments. You are not here to air your 
blood or your graces, and nothing of the sort will be 
permitted. Can you write?’’ 

46 Nos? 

** Do you know the multiplication table?’’ 

** I wit not what ye refer to.’’ : 

“* How much is 9 times 6?’’ 

*“It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason 
that the emergency requiring the fathoming of it hath 
not in my life-days occurred, and so, not having no 
need to know this thing, I abide barren of the knowl- 
edge; 

‘‘If A trade a barrel of onions to B, worth 2 pence 
the bushel, in exchange for a sheep worth 4 pence and 
a dog worth a penny, and C kill the dog before de- 
livery, because bitten by the same, who mistook him 
for D, what sum is still due to A from B, and which 
party pays for the dog, C or D, and who gets the 
money? If A, is the penny sufficient, or may he claim 
consequential damages in the form of additional money 
to represent the possible profit which might have 
inured from the dog, and classifiable as earned incre- 
ment, that is to say, usufruct?’’ 

** Verily, in the all-wise and unknowable providence of 
God, who moveth in mysterious ways his wonders to 
perform, have I never heard the fellow to this question 
for confusion of the mind and congestion of the ducts 
of thought. Wherefore I beseech you let the dog and 
the onions and these people of the strange and godless 
names work out their several salvations from their 
piteous and wonderful difficulties without help of mine, 
for indeed their trouble is sufficient as it is, whereas an 
I tried te help I should but damage their cause the 


224 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


more and yet mayhap not live myself to see the deso- 
lation wrought.’’ 

‘What do you know of the laws of attraction and 
gravitation ?”’ 

‘* Tf there be such, mayhap his grace the king did pro- 
mulgate them whilst that I lay sick about the beginning 
of the year and thereby failed to hear his proclamation.’’ 

‘‘ What do you know of the science of optics?’’ 

‘*T know of governors of places, and seneschals of 
castles, and sheriffs of counties, and many like small 
offices and titles of honor, but him you call the Science 
of Optics I have not heard of before; peradventure it 
is a new dignity.’’ 

‘“ Yes, in this country.’’ 

Try to conceive of this mollusk gravely applying for 
an official position, of any kind under the sun! Why, 
he had all the earmarks of a typewriter copyist, if you 
leave out the disposition to contribute uninvited emen- 
dations of your grammar and punctuation. It was 
unaccountable that he didn’t attempt a little help of 
that sort out of his majestic supply of incapacity for 
the job. But that didn’t prove that he hadn’t material 
in him for the disposition, it only proved that he 
wasn’t a typewriter copyist yet. After nagging him a 
little more, I let the professors loose on him and they 
turned him inside out, on the line of scientific war, and 
found him empty, of course. He knew somewhat 
about the warfare of the time— bushwhacking around 
for ogres, and bull-fights in the tournament ring, and 
such things — but otherwise he was empty and useless. 
Then we took the other young noble in hand, and he 
was the first one’s twin, for ignorance and incapacity. 
I delivered them into the hands of the chairman of the 
Board with the comfortable consciousness that their 
cake was dough. They were examined in the previous 
order of precedence. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 225 


*“ Name, so please you?’’ 

** Pertipole, son of Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley 
Mash.’’ 

** Grandfather ?”’ 

“Also Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash.’’ 

‘* Great-grandfather ?”’ 

‘“ The same name and title.’’ 

‘* Great-great-grandfather ?”’ 

““We had none, worshipful sir, the line failing be- 
fore it had reached so far back.’’ 

‘‘It mattereth not. It is a good four generations, 
and fulfilleth the requirements of the rule.’’ 

““Fulfills what rule?’’ I asked. 

‘“The rule requiring four generations of nobility or 
else the candidate is not eligible.’’ 

‘““A man not eligible for a lieutenancy in the 
army unless he can prove four generations of noble 
descent ?”’ 

““Even so; neither lieutenant nor any other officer 
may be commissioned without that qualification.’’ 

‘“Oh, come, this is an astonishing thing. What 
good is such a qualification as that?’’ 

*“What good? It is a hardy question, fair sir and 
Boss, since it doth go far to impugn the wisdom of 
even our holy Mother Church herself.’’ 

** As how?’’ 

‘“For that she hath established the self-same rule 
regarding saints. By her law none may be canonized 
until he hath lain dead four generations.’’ 

“*T see, I see —it is the same thing. It is wonder- 
ful. In the one case a man lies dead-alive four genera- 
tions— mummified in ignorance and sloth—and that 
qualifies him to command live people, and take their 
weal and woe into his impotent hands; and in the 
other case, a man lies bedded with death and worms 


four generations, and that qualifies him for office in the 
15 


226 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


celestial camp. Does the king’s grace approve of this 
strange law?’’ 

The king said: 

‘* Why, truly I see naught about it that is strange. 
All places of honor and of profit do belong, by natural 
right, to them that be of noble blood, and so these 
dignities in the army are their property and would be » 
so without this or any rule. The rule is but to mark a 
limit. Its purpose is to keep out too recent blood, 
which would bring into contempt these offices, and 
men of lofty lineage would turn their backs and scorn 
to take them. I were to blame an I permitted this 
calamity. You can permit it an you are minded so to 
do, for you have the delegated authority, but that the 
king should do it were a most strange madness and not 
comprehensible to any.’’ 

**T yield. Proceed, sir Chief of the Herald’s Col- 
lege.” : 

The chairman resumed as follows: 

‘** By what illustrious achievement for the honor of 
the Throne and State did the founder of your great 
line lift himself to the sacred dignity of the British 
nobility ?’’ 

** He built a brewery.’’ 

** Sire, the Board finds this candidate perfect in all 
the requirements and qualifications for military com- 
mand, and doth hold his case open for decision after 
due examination of his competitor.’’ 

_ The competitor came forward and proved exactly 
four generations of nobility himself. So there was a 
tie in military qualifications that far. 

He stood aside a moment, and Sir Pertipole was 

questioned further: 

‘“Of what condition was the wife of the founder of 
your line?’’ 

‘She came of the highest landed gentry, yet she 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 227 


was not noble; she was gracious and pure and chari- 
table, of a blameless life and character, insomuch that 
in these regards was she peer of the best lady in the 
land.’’ 

**That will do. Stand down.’’ He called up the 
competing lordling again, and asked: ‘* What was the 
rank and condition of the great-grandmother who con- 
ferred British nobility upon your great house?’’ 

*“She was a king’s leman and did climb to that 
splendid eminence by her own unholpen merit from 
the sewer where she was born.”’ 

*“ Ah, this, indeed, is true nobility, this is the right 
and perfect intermixture. The lieutenancy is yours, 
fair lord. Hold it not in contempt; it is the humble 
step which will lead to grandeurs more worthy of the 
splendor of an origin like to thine.’’ 

I was down in the bottomless pit of humiliation. I 
had promised myself an easy and zenith-scouring 
triumph, and this was the outcome! 

I was almost ashamed to look my poor disappointed 
cadet in the face. I told him to go home and be 
patient, this wasn’t the end. 

I had a private audience with the king, and made a 
proposition. I said it was quite right to officer that 
regiment with nobilities, and he couldn’t have done a 
wiser thing. It would also be a good idea to add five 
hundred officers to it; in fact, add as many officers 
as there were nobles and relatives of nobles in the 
country, even if there should finally be five times as 
many officers as privates in it; and thus make it the 
crack regiment, the envied regiment, the King’s Own 
regiment, and entitled to fight on its own hook and in 
its own way, and go whither it would and come when 
it pleased, in time of war, and be utterly swell and 
independent. This would make that regiment the 


heart’s desire of all the nobility, and they would all 
0 


228 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


be satisfied and happy. Then we would make up the 
rest of the standing army out of commonplace materi- 
als, and officer it with nobodies, as was proper — 
nobodies selected on a basis of mere efficiency — and 
we would make this regiment toe the line, allow it no 
aristocratic freedom from restraint, and force it to do 
all the work and persistent hammering, to the end that 
whenever the King’s Own was tired and wanted to go 
off for a change and rummage around amongst ogres 
and have a good time, it could go without uneasiness, 
knowing that matters were in safe hands behind it, and 
business going to be continued at the old stand, same 
as usual. The king was charmed with the idea. 

When I noticed that, it gave me a valuable notion. 
I thought I saw my way out of an old and stubborn 
difficulty at last. You see, the royalties of the Pen- 
dragon stock were a long-lived race and very fruitful. 
Whenever a child was born to any of these —and it 
was pretty often —there was wild joy in the nation’s 
mouth, and piteous sorrow in the nation’s heart. The 
joy was questionable, but the grief was honest. Be- 
cause the event meant another call for a Royal Grant. 
Long was the list of these royalties, and they were a 
heavy and steadily increasing burden upon the treasury 
and a menace to the crown. Yet Arthur could not 
believe this latter fact, and he would not listen to any 
of my various projects for substituting something in 
the place of the royal grants. If I could have per- 
suaded him to now and then provide a support for one 
of these outlying scions from his own pocket, I could 
have made a grand to-do over it, and it would have 
had a good effect with the nation; but no, he wouldn’t 
hear of such a thing. He had something like a 
religious passion for royal grant; he seemed to look 
upon it asa sort of sacred swag, and one could not 
irritate him in any way so quickly and so surely as by 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 229 


an attack upon that venerable institution. If I ven- 
tured to cautiously hint that there was not another 
respectable family in England that would humble itself 
to hold out the hat — however, that is as far as I ever 
got; he always cut me short there, and peremptorily, 
too. 

But I believed I saw my chance at last. I would 
form this crack regiment out of officers alone — nota 
single private. Half of it should consist of nobles, 
who should fill all the places up to Major-General, and 
serve gratis and pay their own expenses; and they 
would be glad to do this when they should learn that 
the rest of the regiment would consist exclusively of 
princes of the blood. These princes of the blood should 
range in rank from Lieutenant-General up to Field 
Marshal, and be gorgeously salaried and equipped and 
fed by the state. Moreover —and this was the master 
stroke — it should be decreed thai these princely gran- 
dees should be always addressed by a stunningly gaudy 
and awe-compelling title (which I would presently in- 
vent), and they and they only in all England should 
be so addressed. Finally, all princes of the blood 
should have free choice; join that regiment, get that 
great title, and renounce the royal grant, or stay out 
and receive a grant. Neatest touch of all: unborn but 
imminent princes of the blood could be dornz into the 
regiment, and start fair, with good wages and a per- 
manent situation, upon due notice from the parents. 

All the boys would join, I was sure of that; so, all 
existing grants would be relinquished; that the newly 
born would always join was equally certain. Within 
sixty days that quaint and bizarre anomaly, the Royal 
Grant, would cease to be a living fact, and take its 
place among the curiosities of the past. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 
THE FIRST NEWSPAPER 


HEN I told the king I was going out disguised as 
a petty freeman to scour the country and 
familiarize myself with the humbler life of the people, 
he was all afire with the novelty of the thing in a 
minute, and was bound to take a chance in the adven- 
ture himself — nothing should stop him—he would 
drop everything and go along—it was the prettiest 
idea he had run across for many aday. He wanted 
to glide out the back way and start at once; but I 
showed him that that wouldn’t answer. You see, he 
was billed for the king’s-evil— to touch for it, I mean 
—and it wouldn’t be right to disappoint the house; 
and it wouldn’t make a delay worth considering, any- 
way, it was only a one-night stand. And I thought 
he ought to tell the queen he was going away. He 
clouded up at that and looked sad. I was sorry I had 
spoken, especially when he said mournfully: 
~~ **Thou forgettest that Launcelot is here; and where 
Launcelot is, she noteth not the going forth of the 
king, nor what day he returneth.’’ 

Of course, I changed the subject. Yes, Guenever 
was beautiful, it is true, but take her all around she 
was pretty slack. I never meddled in these matters, 
they weren’t my affair, but I did hate to see the way 
things were going on, and I don’t mind saying that 

( 230} 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 231 


much. Many’s the time she had asked me, ‘Sir 
Boss, hast seen Sir Launcelot about?’’ but if ever she 
went fretting around for the king I didn’t happen to be 
around at the time. 

There was a very good lay-out for the king’s-evil 
business—very tidy and creditable. The king sat 
under a canopy of state; about him were clustered a 
large body of the clergy in full canonicals. Conspicu- 
ous, both for location and personal outfit, stood 
Marinel, a hermit of the quack-doctor species, to 
introduce the sick. All abroad over the spacious 
floor, and clear down to the doors, in a thick jumble, 
lay or sat the scrofulous, under a strong light. It 
was as good asa tableau; in fact, it had all the look 
of being gotten up for that, though it wasn’t. There 
were eight hundred sick people present. The work 
was slow; it lacked the interest of novelty for me, 
because I had seen the ceremonies before; the thing 
soon became tedious, but the proprieties required me 
to stick it out. The doctor was there for the reason 
that in all such crowds there were many people who 
only imagined something was the matter with them, 
and many who were consciously sound but wanted the 
immortal honor of fleshly contact with a king, and yet 
others who pretended to illness in order to get the 
piece of coin that went with the touch. Up to this 
time this coin had been a wee little gold piece worth 
about a third of a dollar. When you consider how 
much that amount of money would buy, in that age 
and country, and how usual it was to be scrofulous, 
when not dead, you would understand that the annual 
king’s-evil appropriation was just the River and Harbor 
bill of that government for the grip it took on the 
treasury and the chance it afforded for skinning the 
surplus. So I had privately concluded to touch the 
treasury itself for the king’s-evil, JI cavered six- 


232 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


sevenths of the appropriation into the treasury a week 
before starting from Camelot on my adventures, and 
ordered that the other seventh be inflated into five- 
cent nickels and delivered into the hands of the head 
clerk of the King’s Evil Department; a nickel to take 
the place of each gold coin, you see, and do its work 
for it. It might strain the nickel some, but I judged it 
could stand it. Asarule, I do not approve of water- 
ing stock, but I considered it square enough in this 
case, for it was just a gift, anyway. Of course, you 
can water a gift as much as you want to; and I gener- 
ally do. The old gold and silver coins of the country 
were of ancient and unknown origin, as a rule, but 
some of them were Roman; they were ill-shapen, and 
seldom rounder than a moon that is a week past the 
’ full; they were hammered, not minted, and they were 
so worn with use that the devices upon them were as 
illegible as blisters, and looked like them. I judged 
that a sharp, bright new nickel, with a first-rate like- 
ness of the king on one side of it and Guenever on the 
other, and a blooming pious motto, would take the 
tuck out of scrofula as handy as a nobler coin and 
please the scrofulous fancy more; and I was right. 
This batch was the first it was tried on, and it worked 
to a charm. The saving in expense was a notable 
economy. You will see that by these figures: We 
touched a trifle over 700 of the 800 patients; at former 
rates, this would have cost the government about 
$240; at the new rate we pulled through for about 
$35, thus saving upward of $200 at one swoop. To 
appreciate the full magnitude of this stroke, consider 
these other figures: the annual expenses of a national 
government amount to the equivalent of a contribution 
of three days’ average wages of every individual of the 
population, counting every individual as if he werea 
man. If you take a nation of 60,000,000, where 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 233 


average wages are $2 per day, three days’ wages taken 
from each individual will provide $360,000,000 and 
pay the government’s expenses. In my day, in my 
own country, this money was collected from imposts, 
and the citizen imagined that the foreign importer paid 
it, and it made him comfortable to think so; whereas, 
in fact, it was paid by the American people, and was 
so equally and exactly distributed among them that 
the annual cost to the 100-millionaire and the annual 
cost to the sucking child of the day-laborer was pre- 
cisely the same—each paid $6. Nothing could be 
equaler than that, I reckon. Well, Scotland and 
Ireland were tributary to Arthur, and the united popu- 
lations of the British Islands amounted to something 
less than 1,000,000. A mechanic’s average wage was 
3 cents a day, when he paid his own keep. By this 
rule the national government’s expenses were $90,000 
a year, or about $250 a day. Thus, by the substitu- 
tion of nickels for gold on a king’s-evil day, I not 
only injured no one, dissatisfied no one, but pleased 
all concerned and saved four-fifths of that day’s 
national expense into the bargain—a saving which 
would have been the equivalent of $800,000 in my 
day in America. In making this substitution I had 
drawn upon the wisdom of a very remote source — the 
wisdom of my boyhood —for the true statesman does 
not despise any wisdom, howsoever lowly may be its 
origin: in my boyhood I had always saved my pennies 
and contributed buttons to the foreign missionary 
cause. The buttons would answer the ignorant savage 
as well as the coin, the coin would answer me better 
than the buttons; all hands were happy and nobody 
hurt. 

‘Marinel took the patients as they came. He ex- 
amined the candidate; if he couldn’t qualify he was 
warned off; if he could he was passed along to the 


234 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


king. A priest pronounced the words, ** They shall 
lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’’ 
Then the king stroked the ulcers, while the reading 
continued; finally, the patient graduated and got his 
nickel — the king hanging it around his neck himself — 
and was dismissed. Would you think that that would 
cure? It certainly did. Any mummery will cure if 
the patient’s faith is strong in it. Up by Astolat there 
was a chapel where the Virgin had once appeared to a 
girl who used to herd geese around there —the girl 
said so herself —and they built the chapel upon that 
spot and hung a picture in it representing the occur- 
rence —a picture which you would think it dangerous 
for a sick person to approach; whereas, on the con- 
trary, thousands of the lame and the sick came and 
prayed before it every year and went away whole and 
sound; and even the well could look upon it and live. 
Of course, when I was told these things I did not be- 
lieve them; but when I went there and saw them I had 
to succumb. I saw the cures effected myself; and 
they were real cures and not questionable. I saw 
cripples whom I had seen around Camelot for years 
on crutches, arrive and pray before that picture, and 
put down their crutches and walk off without a limp. 
There were piles of crutches there which had been left 
by such people as a testimony. 

In other places people operated on a patient’s mind, 
without saying a word to him, and cured him. In 
others, experts assembled patients in a room and 
' prayed over them, and appealed to their faith, and 
those patients went away cured. Wherever you find a 
king who can’t cure the king’s-evil you can be sure 
that the most valuable superstition that supports his 
throne — the subject’s belief in the divine appointment 
of his sovereign — has passed away. In my youth the 
monarchs of England had ceased to touch for the evil, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 235 


but there was no occasion for this diffidence: they 
could have cured it forty-nine times in fifty. 

Well, when the priest had been droning for three 
hours, and the good king polishing the evidences, and 
the sick were still pressing forward as plenty as ever, I 
got to feeling intolerably bored. I was sitting by an 
open window not far from the canopy of state. For 
the five hundredth time a patient stood forward to have 
his repulsivenesses stroked; again those words were 
being droned out: ‘‘they shall lay their hands on the 
sick’’— when outside there rang clear as a clarion a 
note that enchanted my soul and tumbled thirteen 
worthless centuries about my ears: ‘‘ Camelot Weekly 
Hosannah and Literary Volcano /— latest irruption — 
only two cents—all about the big miracle in the 
Valley of Holiness!’’ One greater than kings had 
arrived —the newsboy. But I was the only person in 
all that throng who knew the meaning of this mighty 
birth, and what this imperial magician was come into 
the world to do. 

I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my 
paper; the Adam-newsboy of the world went around 
the corner to get my change; is around the corner 
yet. It was delicious to see a newspaper again, yet I 
was conscious of a secret shock when my eye fell upon 
the first batch of display head-lines. I had lived ina 
clammy atmosphere of reverence, respect, deference, 
so long that they sent a quivery little cold wave 
through me: 


HIGH TIMES IN THE VALLEY 
OF HOLINESS? 


err ree 


16 THE WATER-MORKS CORKED! 


2306 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ee ee 


BRER MERLIN WORK3 HIS ARTS,EBUT GETS 


LEFT? 





But t he Boss scores on his first Innings! 





The Miraculous Well Uncorked amid 
awful outbursts of 
INFERNAL FIRE AND SMOKE 
ANDTHUNDER! 


THE sUZZARD-ROOST ASTONISHED ! 





UNPARALLELED REJOIBINGS! 





—and soon, and soon. Yes, it was too loud. Once 
I could have enjoyed it and seen nothing out of the 
way about it, but now its note was discordant. It was 
good Arkansas journalism, but this was not Arkansas. 
Moreover, the next to the last line was calculated to 
give offense to the hermits, and perhaps lose us their 
advertising. Indeed, there was too lightsome a tone 
~ of flippancy all through the paper. It was plain I had 
undergone a considerable change without noticing it. 
I found myself unpleasantly affected by pert little 
irreverencies which would have seemed but proper and 
airy graces of speech at an earlier period of my life. 
There was an abundance of the following breed of 
items, and they discomforted me: 


16 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Local Smoke and Cinders. 


Sir Launcejo} met up with old King 
Vegrivance of Ireland unexpectedly last 
weok over on the moor south of Sir 
Balmoral le Merveilleuse’s hog dasture. 
The widow has been notified. 

Expedition No. 3 will start adout the 
first of mextSmgnthgon a search f8r Sir 
Sagramour le Desirous. It is in com- 
and of the renowned Knight of the Red 
Lawns, assissted by Sir Persant of Inde, 
who is competegt. intelligent, courte- 
ous, and in every May a brick, and fur- 
tHer assisted by Sir Palamides the Sara- 
cen, who is no_ huckleberry hinself. 
This is no pic-nic, these boys mean 
busine&s. 

The readers of the Hosannah will re- 
gret to learn that the hadndsome and 
popular Sir Charolais of Gaul, who dur- 
ing his four weeks’ stay at the Bull and 
Halibut, this&¥city, has won every heart 
by his polished manners and _ elegant 
c{[nversation, will pull out to-day for 
home. Give us another call, Charley! 

The bdsiness end of the funeral of 


the late Sir Dalliance the duke’s son of 


237 


238 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Cornwall, killed in an encounter with 
the Giant of the Knotted Bludgeon last 
Luesday on the borders of the Plain of 
Enchantment was in the hands of the 
ever affable and eyjcient (Mumble, 
prince of unZertakers, then whom there 
exists none by whom it were a more 


satisfying pleasure to have the last sad 


’ offices performed. Give him a trial. 


The cornial thanks of the Hosannah 
office are due, from editor down to 


devil, to the ever courteous and thought- 
ful Lord High Stewgayd of the Palace’s 


Third Assistant Vt for several sau- 


cets of ice crEam, a quality calculated 


to make the ey we the recipients hu- 
mid with grt ude; and it done it. 
When this [administration wants to 
chalk up a desirable name for early 
promotion, the Hosannah would like a 
chance to sudgest. 

The Demoiselle Irene qewlap, of 
South Astolat, is visiting her uncle, the 
popular host of the Cattlemen’s Board- 
ing Ho&se, Liver Lane, this city, 

Young Barker the bellows-mender ie 
hoMe again, and looks much improved 


by his vacation round-up among the t- 


lying smithies. gee his ad. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 239 


Of course it was good enough journalism for a be- 
ginning; I knew that quite well, and yet it was some- 
how disappointing. The ‘* Court Circular’’ pleased 
me better; indeed, its simple and dignified respect- 
fulness was a distinct refreshment to me after all those 
disgraceful familiarities. But even it could have been 
improved. Do what one may, there is no getting an 
air of variety into a court circular, I acknowledge that. 
There is a profound monotonousness about its facts 
that baffles and defeats one’s sincerest efforts to make 
them sparkle and enthuse. The best way to manage — 
in fact, the only sensible way—is to disguise repeti- 
tiousness of fact under variety of form: skin your fact 
each time and lay on a new ccuticle of words. It de- 
ceives the eye; you think it is a new fact; it gives you 
the idea that the court is carrying on like everything; 
this excites you, and you drain the whole column, with 
a good appetite, and perhaps never notice that it’s a 
barrel of soup made out of a single bean. Clarence’s 
way was good, it was simple, it was dignified, it was 
direct and business-like; all I say is, it was not the 
best way: 


CouRT CIRCULAR. 


Op Monday, the ying rede in the park. 


Sé Tuesday, 6¢ ¢ cs 
s¢ Wendesaay’ 66 ‘s a6 
ce Thursday 6¢ ce 6t 
ia 4 Friday, «¢ 6é ce 
6¢ Savurday 6é ef s¢ 
ic Sunday, a4 c¢ £¢é 


However, take the paper by and large, I was vastly 
pleased with it. Little crudities of a mechanical sort 


240 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


were observable here and there, but there were not 
enough of them to amount to anything, and it was 
good enough Arkansas proof-reading, anyhow, and 
better than was needed in Arthur’s day and realm. 
Asa rule, the grammar was leaky and the construc- 
tion more or less lame; but I did not much mind these 
things. They are common defects of my own, and 
one mustn’t criticise other people on grounds where he 
can’t stand perpendicular himself. 

I was hungry enough for literature to want to take 
down the whole paper at this one meal, but I got only 
a few bites, and then had to postpone, because the 
monks around me besieged me so with eager ques- 
tions: What is this curious thing? What is it for? Is 
it a handkerchief? — saddle blanket? — part of a shirt? 
What is it made of? How thin it is, and how dainty 
and frail; and how it rattles. Will it wear, do you 
think, and won’t the rain injure it? Is it writing that 
appears on it, or is it only ornamentation? They sus- 
pected it was writing, because those among them who 
knew how to read Latin and had a smatteing of 
Greek, recognized some of the letters, but they could 
make nothing out of the result asa whole. I put my 
information in the simplest form I could: 

“It is a public journal; I will explain what that is, 
another time. It is not cloth, it is made of paper; 
some time I will explain what paper is. The lines on 
it are reading matter; and not written by hand, but 
printed; by and by I will explain what printing is. A 
-thousand of these sheets have been made, all exactly 
like this, in every minute detail—they can’t be told 
apart.’’ Then they all broke out with exclamations of 
surprise and admiration: 

‘“A thousand! Verily a mighty work—a year’s 
work for many men.”’ 

** No— merely a day’s work for a man and a boy.’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 241 


They crossed themselves, and whiffed out a protec- 
tive prayer or two. 

** Ah-h—a miracle, a wonder! Dark work of en- 
chantment.’’ 

I let it go at that. Then I read in a low voice, to as 
many as could crowd their shaven heads within hearing 
distance, part of the account of the miracle of the 
restoration of the well, and was accompanied by aston- 
ished and reverent ejaculations all through: ‘‘ Ah-h-h!’’ 
** How true!’’ ‘*‘ Amazing, amazing!’’ ‘* These be 
the very haps as they happened, in marvelous exact- 
ness!’’ And might they take this strange thing in 
their hands, and feel of it and examine it?—they 
would be very careful. Yes. So they took it, hand- 
ling it as cautiously and devoutly as if it had been 
some holy thing come from some supernatural region; 
and gently felt of its texture, caressed its pleasant 
smooth surface with lingering touch, and scanned the 
mysterious characters with fascinated eyes. These 
grouped bent heads, these charmed faces, these speak- 
ing eyes— how beautiful to me! For was not this my 
darling, and was not all this mute wonder and interest 
and homage a most eloquent tribute and unforced 
compliment to it? I knew, then, how a mother feels 
when women, whether strangers or friends, take her 
new baby, and close themselves about it with one 
eager impulse, and bend their heads over it in a 
tranced adoration that makes all the rest of the uni- 
verse vanish out of their consciousness and be as if it 
were not, for that time. I knew how she feels, and 
that there is no other satisfied ambition, whether of 
king, conqueror, or poet, that ever reaches half-way to 
that serene far summit or yields half so divine a con- 
tentment. 

During all the rest of the séance my paper traveled 
from group to group all up and down and about that 

16 


242 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


huge hall, and my happy eye was upon it always, and 
I sat motionless, steeped in satisfaction, drunk with 
enjoyment. Yes, this was heaven; I was tasting it 
once, if I might never taste it more. 


THE KING 


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CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE YANKEE AND THE KING TRAVEL INCOGNITO 


BOUT bedtime I took the king to my private 
quarters to cut his hair and help him get the 
hang of the lowly raiment he was to wear. The high 
classes wore their hair banged across the forehead but 
hanging to the shoulders the rest of the way around, 
whereas the lowest ranks of commoners were banged 
fore and aft both; the slaves were bangless, and 
allowed their hair free growth. So I inverted a bowl 
over his head and cut away all the locks that hung 
below it. I also trimmed his whiskers and mustache 
until they were only about a half-inch long; and tried 
to do it inartistically, and succeeded. It was a villainous 
disfigurement. When he got his lubberly sandals on, 
and his long robe of coarse brown linen cloth, which 
hung straight from his neck to his ankle-bones, he was 
no longer the comeliest man in his kingdom, but one 
of the unhandsomest and most commonplace and un- 
attractive. We were dressed and barbered alike, and 
could pass for small farmers, or farm bailiffs, or 
shepherds, or carters; yes, or for village artisans, if 
we chose, our costume being in effect universal among 
the poor, because of its strength and cheapness. I 
don’t mean that it was really cheap to a very poor 
person, but I do mean that it was the cheapest material 
there was for male attire — manufactured material, you 

understand. 

P (243) 


244 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


We slipped away an hour before dawn, and by broad 
sun-up had made eight or ten miles, and were in the 
midst of a sparsely settled country. I had a pretty 
heavy knapsack; it was laden with provisions — pro- 
visions for the king to taper down on, till he could 
take to the coarse fare of the country without damage. 

I found a comfortable seat for the king by the road- 
side, and then gave him a morsel or two to stay his 
stomach with. Then I said I would find some water 
for him, and strolled away. Part of my project was to 
get out of sight and sit down and rest a little myself. 
It had always been my custom to stand when in his 
presence; even at the council board, except upon 
those rare occasions when the sitting was a very long 
one, extending over hours; then I had a trifling little 
backless thing which was like a reversed culvert and 
was as comfortable as the toothache. I didn’t want to 
break him in suddenly, but do it by degrees. We 
should have to sit together now when in company, or 
people would notice; but it would not be good politics 
for me to be playing equality with him when there was 
no necessity for it. 

I found the water some three hundred yards away, 
and had been resting about twenty minutes, when I 
heard voices. That is all right, I thought — peasants 
going to work; nobody else likely to be stirring this 
early. But the next moment these comers jingled into 
sight around a turn of the road—smartly clad people 
of quality, with luggage-mules and servants in their 
train! I was off like a shot, through the bushes, by 
the shortest cut. For a while it did seem that these 
people would pass the king before I could get to him; 
but desperation gives you wings, you know, and I 
canted my body forward, inflated my breast, and held 
my breath and flew. I arrived. And in plenty good 
enough time, too. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 245 


** Pardon, my king, but it’s no time fo: ceremony — 
jump! Jump to your feet — some quality are coming !’’ 

‘*Ts that a marvel? Let them come.”’ 

““But my liege! You must not be seen sitting. 
Rise !—and stand in humble posture while they pass. 
You are a peasant, you know.’’ 

‘“True—I had forgot it, so lost was I in planning 
of a huge war with Gaul’’—he was up by this time, 
but a farm could have got up quicker, if there was 
any kind of a boom in real estate—‘‘ and right-so a 
thought came randoming overthwart this majestic 
dream the which —’’ 

‘“*A humbler attitude, my lord the king—and 
quick! Duck your head!— more! —still more! — 
droop it!’ 

He did his honest best, but lord, it was no great 
things. He looked as humble as the leaning tower at 
Pisa. It is the most you could say of it. Indeed, it 
was such a thundering poor success that it raised 
wondering scowls all along the line, and a gorgeous 
flunkey at the tail end of it raised his whip; but I 
jumped in time and was under it when it fell; and 
under cover of the volley of coarse laughter which fol- 
lowed, I spoke up sharply and warned the king to take 
no notice. He mastered himself for the moment, but 
it was a sore tax; he wanted to eat up the procession. 
I said: 

**It would end our adventures at the very start; 
and we, being without weapons, could do nothing with 
that armed gang. If we are going to succeed in our 
emprise, we must not only look the peasant but act 
the peasant.’’ 

**It is wisdom; none can gainsay it. Let us go on, 
Sir Boss. I will take note and learn, and do the best 
I may.’’ 

He kept his word. He did the best he could, but 


246 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


I’ve seen better. If you have ever seen an active, 
heedless, enterprising child going diligently out of 
one mischief and into another all day long, and an 
anxious mother at its heels all the while, and just 
saving it by a hair from drowning itself or breaking 
its neck with each new experiment, you’ve seen the 
king and me. 

If I could have foreseen what the thing was going to 
be like, I should have said, No, if anybody wants to 
make his living exhibiting a king as a peasant, let him 
take the layout; I can do better with a menagerie, and 
last longer. And yet, during the first three days I 
never allowed him to enter a hut or other dwelling. If 
he could pass muster anywhere during his early 
novitiate, it would be in small inns and on the road; 
so to these places we confined ourselves. Yes, he 
certainly did the best he could, but what of that? He 
didn’t improve a bit that I could see. 

He was always frightening me, always breaking out 
with fresh astonishers, in new and unexpected places. 
Toward evening on the second day, what does he do 
but blandly fetch out a dirk from inside his robe! 

‘* Great guns, my liege, where did you get that?’’ 

‘‘From a smuggler at the inn, yester eve.’’ 

** What in the world possessed you to buy it?’’ 

** We have escaped divers dangers by wit—thy wit 
— but I have bethought me that it were but prudence 
if I bore a weapon, too. Thine might fail thee in 
some pinch.”’ 

‘*But people of our condition are not allowed to 
carry arms. What would a lord say—yes, or any 
other person of whatever condition —if he caught an 
upstart peasant with a dagger on his person?’’ 

It was a lucky thing for us that nobody came along 
just then. I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; 
and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 247 


some bright fresh new way of killing itself. We walked 
along, silent and thinking. Finally the king said: 

*“When ye know that I meditate a thing incon- 
venient, or that hath a peril in it, why do you not 
warn me to cease from that project?’’ 

It was a startling question, and a puzzler. I didn’t 
quite know how to take hold of it, or what to say, and 
so, of course, I ended by saying the natural thing: 

‘“But, sire, how can / know what your thoughts 
are ?*” 

The king stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at 
me. 

**T believed thou wert greater than Merlin; and 
truly in magic thou art. But prophecy is greater than 
magic. Merlin is a prophet.’’ 

I saw I had made a blunder. I must get back my 
lost ground. After a deep reflection and careful plan- 
ning, I said: 

‘* Sire, I have been misunderstood. I will explain. 
There are two kinds of prophecy. One is the gift to 
foretell things that are but a little way off, the other is 
the gift to foretell things that are whole ages and 
centuries away. Which is the mightier gift, do you 
think?’’ 

** Oh, the last, most surely !”’ 

‘True. Does Merlin possess it?’’ 

‘** Partly, yes. He foretold mysteries about my birth 
and future kingship that were twenty years away.’’ 

** Has he ever gone beyond that?’’ 

** He would not claim more, I think.”’ 

“*TIt is probably his limit. All prophets have their 
limit. The limit of some of the great prophets has 
been a hundred years.’’ 

‘* These are few, I ween.’’ 

** There have been two still greater ones, whose limit 
was four hundred and six hundred years, and one 


248 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


whose limit compassed even seven hundred and 
twenty.’’ 

‘* Gramercy, it is marvelous !’’ 

** But what are these in comparison with me? They 
are nothing.’’ 

‘*What? Canst thou truly look beyond even so 
vast a stretch of time as—’’ 

**Seven hundred years? My liege, as clear as the 
vision of an eagle does my prophetic eye penetrate and 
lay bare the future of this world for nearly thirteen 
centuries and a half!’’ 

My land, you should have seen the king’s eyes 
spread slowly open, and lift the earth’s entire atmos- 
phere as much as aninch! That settled Brer Merlin. 
One never had any occasion to prove his facts, with 
these people; all he had to do was to state them. It 
never occurred to anybody to doubt the statement. 

‘* Now, then,’’ I continued, ‘‘I could work both 
kinds of prophecy—the long and the short—if I 
chose to take the trouble to keep in practice; but I 
seldom exercise any but the long kind, because the 
other is beneath my dignity. It is properer to Merlin’s 
sort — stump-tail prophets, as we call them in the pro- 
fession. Of course, I whet up now and then and flirt 
out a minor prophecy, but not often — hardly ever, in 
fact. You will remember that there was great talk, 
when you reached the Valley of Holiness, about my 
having prophesied your coming and the very hour of 
your arrival, two or three days beforehand.’’ 

** Indeed, yes, I mind it now.’’ 

** Well, I could have done it as much as forty times 
easier, and piled on a thousand times more detail into 
the bargain, if it had been five hundred years away 
instead of two or three days.”’ 

** How amazing that it should be so!’’ 

** Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 249 


that is five hundred years away easier than he cana 
thing that’s only five hundred seconds off.’’ 

‘“And yet in reason it should clearly be the other 
way; it should be five hundred times as easy to fore- 
tell the last as the first, for, indeed, it is so close by 
that one uninspired might almost see it. In truth, the 
law of prophecy doth contradict the likelihoods, most 
strangely making the difficult easy, and the easy 
difficult.”’ 

It was a wise head. A peasant’s cap was no safe 
disguise for it; you could know it for a king’s under a 
diving-bell, if you could hear it work its intellect. 

I had a new trade now, and plenty of business in it. 
The king was as hungry to find out everything that was 
going to happen during the next thirteen centuries as 
if he were expecting to live in them. From that time 
out, I prophesied myself bald-headed trying to supply 
the demand. I have done some indiscreet things in 
my day, but this thing of playing myself for a prophet 
was the worst. Still, it had its ameliorations. A 
prophet doesn’t have to have any brains. They are 
good to have, of course, for the ordinary exigencies of 
life, but they are no use in professional work. It is 
the restfulest vocation there is. When the spirit of 
prophecy comes upon you, you merely cake your 
intellect and lay it off in a cool place for a rest, and 
unship your jaw and leave it alone; it will work itself: 
the result is prophecy. 

Every day a knight-errant or so came along, and 
the sight of them fired the king’s martial spirit every 
time. He would have forgotten himself, sure, and 
said something to them ina style a suspicious shade 
or so above his ostensible degree, and so I always got 
him well out of the road in time. Then he would stand 
and look with all his eyes; and a proud light would 
flash from them, and his nostrils would inflate like a 


250 | A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


war-horse’s, and I knew he was longing for a brush 
with them. But about noon of the third day I had 
stopped in the road to take a precaution which had 
been suggested by the whip-stroke that had fallen to 
my share two days before; a precaution which I had 
afterward decided to leave untaken, I was so loath to 
institute it; but now I had just had a fresh reminder: 
while striding heedlessly along, with jaw spread and 
intellect at rest, for I was prophesying, I stubbed my 
toe and fell sprawling. I was so pale I couldn’t think 
fora moment; then I got softly and carefully up and 
unstrapped my knapsack. I had that dynamite bomb 
in it, done up in wool ina box. It was a good thing 
to have along; the time would come when I could do 
a valuable miracle with it, maybe, but it was a nervous 
thing to have about me, and I didn’t like to ask the 
king to carry it. Yet I must either throw it away or 
think up some safe way to get along with its society. 
I got it out and slipped it into my scrip, and just then 
here came a couple of knights. The king stood, 
stately as a statue, gazing toward them—had for- 
gotten himself again, of course—and before I could 
get a word of warning out, it was time for him to skip, 
and well that he did it, too. He supposed they would 
turn aside. Turn aside to avoid trampling peasant dirt 
under foot? When had he ever turned aside himself — 
or ever had the chance to do it, if a peasant saw him 
or any other noble knight in time to judiciously save 
him the trouble? The knights paid no attention to 
the king at all; it was his place to look out himself, 
and if he hadn’t skipped he would have been placidly 
ridden down, and laughed at besides. 

The king was ina flaming fury, and launched out 
his challenge and epithets with a most royal vigor. 
The knights were some little distance by now. They 
halted, greatly surprised, and turned in their saddles 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 254 


and looked back, as if wondering if it might be worth 
while to bother with such scum as we. Then they 
wheeled and started for us. Not amoment must be 
lost. I started for hem. I passed them at a rattling 
gait, and as I went by I flung out a hair-lifting soul- 
scorching thirteen-jointed insult which made the king’s 
effort poor and cheap by comparison. I got it out of 
the nineteenth century where they know how. They 
had such headway that they were nearly to the king 
before they could check up; then, frantic with rage, 
they stood up their horses on their hind hoofs and 
whirled them around, and the next moment here they 
came, breast to breast. I was seventy yards off, then, 
and scrambling up a great bowlder at the roadside. 
When they were within thirty yards of me they let their 
long lances droop to a level, depressed their mailed 
heads, and so, with their horse-hair plumes streaming 
straight out behind, most gallant to see, this lightning 
express came tearing for me! When they were within 
fifteen yards, I sent that bomb with a sure aim, and it 
struck the ground just under the horses’ noses. 

Yes, it was a neat thing, very neat and pretty to 
see. It resembled a steamboat explosion on the Mis- 
sissippi; and during the next fifteen minutes we stood 
under a steady drizzle of microscopic fragments of 
knights and hardware and horse-flesh. I say we, for 
the king joined the audience, of course, as soon as he 
had got his breath again. There was a hole there 
which would afford steady work for all the people in 
that region for some years to come—in trying to ex- 
plain it, I mean; as for filling it up, that service would 
be comparatively prompt, and would fall to the lot of 
a select few——peasants of that seignory; and they 
wouldn’t get anything for it, either. 

But I explained it to the king myself. I said it was 
done with a dynamite bomb, This information did 

17 


252 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


him no damage, because it left him as intelligent as he 
was before. However, it was a noble miracle, in his 
eyes, and was another settler for Merlin. I thought it 
well enough to explain that this was a miracle of so 
rare a sort that it couldn’t be done except when the 
atmospheric conditions were just right. Otherwise he 
would be encoring it every time we had a good sub- 
ject, and that would be inconvenient, because I hadn’t 
any more bombs along. 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 


DRILLING THE KING 


N the morning of the fourth day, when it was just 
sunrise, and we had been tramping an hour in 
the chill dawn, I came to a resolution: the king must 
be drilled; things could not go on so, he must be 
taken in hand and deliberately and conscientiously 
drilled, or we couldn’t ever venture to enter a dwelling; 
the very cats would know this masquerader for a hum- 
bug and no peasant. So I called a halt and said: 

** Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you are 
ail right, there is no discrepancy; but as between your 
clothes and your bearing, you are all wrong, there is a 
most noticeable discrepancy. Your soldierly stride, 
your lordly port—these will not do. You stand too 
straight, your looks are too high, too confident The 
cares of a kingdom do not stoop the shoulders, they do 
not droop the chin, they do not depress the high level 
of the eye-glance, they do not put doubt and fear in 
the heart and hang out the signs of them in slouching 
body and unsure step. It is the sordid cares of the 
lowly born that do these things. You must learn the 
trick; you must imitate the trademarks of poverty, 
misery, oppression, insult, and the other several and 
common inhumanities that sap the manliness out of a 
man and make him a loyal and proper and approved 
subject and a satisfaction to his masters, or the very 


7 (253) 


254 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


infants will know you for better than your disguise, 
and we shall go to pieces at the first hut we stop at. 
Pray try to walk like this.’’ 

The king took careful note, and then tried an 
imitation. 

‘Pretty fair—pretty fair, Chin a little lower, 
please — there, very good. Eyes too high; pray don’t 
look at the horizon, look at the ground, ten steps in 
front of you. Ah—that is better, that is very good. 
Wait, please; you betray too much vigor, too much 
decision; you want more of a shamble. Look at me, 


please —this is what I mean...... Now you are get- 
ting it; that is the idea — at least, it sort of approaches 
Mhereunats os Yes, that is pretty fair. But/ There is a 


' great big something wanting, I don’t quite know what 
it is. Please walk thirty yards, so that I can get 
a perspective on the thing...... Now, then— your 
head’s right, speed’s right, shoulders right, eyes right, 
chin right, gait, carriage, general style right — every- 
thing’s right! And yet the fact remains, the aggre- 
gate’s wrong. The account don’t balance. Do it 
again, please... 4's. now I think I begin to see what it 
is. Yes, I’ve struck it. You see, the genuine spirit- 
lessness is wanting; that’s what’s the trouble. It’s all 
amateur — mechanical details all right, almost to a 
hair; everything about the delusion perfect, except 
that’if don’t delude.’’ 

** What, then, must one do, to prevail ?’’ 

Raet Me igh. oe I can’t seem to quite get at it. 
In fact, there isn’t anything that can right the matter 
but practice. This is a good place for it: roots and 
stony ground to break up your stately gait, a region 
not liable to interruption, only one field and one hut in 
sight, and they so far away that nobody could see us 
from there. It will be well to move a little off the 
road and put in the whole day drilling you, sire.’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 255 


After the drill had gone on a little while, I said: 

** Now, sire, imagine that we are at the door of the 
hut yonder, and the family are before us. Proceed, 
please — accost the head of the house.’’ 

The king unconsciously straightened up like a monu- 
ment, and said, with frozen austerity: 

**Varlet, bring a seat; and serve to me what cheer 
ye have.’’ 

** Ah, your grace, that is not well done.’’ 

** In what lacketh it?’’ 

“* These people do not call each other varlets.”’ 

** Nay, is that true?’’ 

**'Yes; only those above them call them so.’’ 

*‘ Then must I try again. I will call him villein.’’ 

**No-no; for he may be a freeman.”’ 

*“Ah—so. Then peradventure I should call him 
goodman.’’ 

** That would answer, your grace, but it would be 
still better if you said friend, or brother.’’ 

** Brother !—to dirt like that?’’ 

*‘ Ah, but we are pretending to be dirt like that, 
too.”’ 

*‘It is even true. I will say it. Brother, bring a 
seat, and thereto what cheer ye have, withal. Mow 
*tis right.’’ 

** Not quite, not wholly right. You have asked for 
one, not zs—for one, not both; food for one, a seat 
for one.’’ 

The king looked puzzled —he wasn’t a very heavy 
weight, intellectually. His head was an hour-glass; it 
could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain ata 
time, not the whole idea at once. 

** Would you have a seat also —and sit?’’ 

‘*Tf I did not sit, the man would perceive that we 
were only pretending to be equals—-and playing the 
deception pretty poorly, too.’’ 


256 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘* Tt is well and truly said! How wonderful is truth, 
come it in whatsoever unexpected form it may! Yes, 
he must bring out seats and food for both, and in 
serving us present not ewer and napkin with more 
show of respect to the one than to the other.’’ 

‘And there is even yet a detail that needs correct- 
ing. He must bring nothing outside; we will go in— 
in among the dirt, and possibly other repulsive things, 
—and take the food with the household, and after the 
fashion of the house, and all on equal terms, except the 
man be of the serf class; and finally, there will be no 
ewer and no napkin, whether he be serf or free. Please 
walk again, my liege. There—it is better —it is the 
best yet; but not perfect. The shoulders have known 
no ignobler burden than iron mail, and they will not 
stoop.’’ 

‘*Give me, then, the bag. I will learn the spirit 
that goeth with burdens that have not honor. It is 
the spirit that stoopeth the shoulders, I ween, and not 
the weight; for armor is heavy, yet it is a proud 
burden, and a man standeth straight in it...... Nay, 
but me no buts, offer me no objections. I will have 
the thing. Strap it upon my back.’’ 

He was complete now with that knapsack on, and 
looked as little like a king as any man I had ever seen. 
But it was an obstinate pair of shoulders; they could 
not seem to learn the trick of stooping with any sort of 
deceptive naturalness. The drill went on, I prompting 
and correcting: 

‘* Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up 
by relentless creditors; you are out of work— which 
is horse-shoeing, let us say—and can get none; and 
your wife is sick, your children are crying because 
they are hungry —’’ 

And so on, and soon. I drilled him as represent- 
ing in turn all sorts of people out of luck and suffering 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 257 


dire privations and misfortunes. But lord, it was only 
just words, words —they meant nothing in the world 
to him, I might just as well have whistled. Words 
realize nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless you have 
suffered in your own person the thing which the words 
try to describe. There are wise people who talk ever 
so knowingly and complacently about ‘‘the working 
classes,’’ and satisfy themselves that a day’s hard in- 
tellectual work is very much harder than a day’s hard 
manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger 
pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because 
they know all about the one, but haven’t tried the 
other. But I know all about both; and so far as I ain 
concerned, there isn’t money enough in the universe 
to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do 
the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near 
nothing as you can cipher it down—and I will be 
satisfied, too. 

Intellectual ‘‘ work’’ is misnamed; it is a pleasure, 
a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. ‘The 
poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, 
sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, 
preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is 
at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow 
in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra 
with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound 
washing over him—why, certainly, he is at work, if 
you wish to call it that, but lord, it’s a sarcasm just 
the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair 
—but there it is, and nothing can change it: the 
higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, 
the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And it’s 
also the very law of those transparent swindles, trans- 
missible nobility and kingship. 


1% 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


THE SMALLPOX HUT 


HEN we arrived at that hut at mid-afternoon, we 
saw no signs of life about it. The field near by 
had been denuded of its crop some time before, and 
had a skinned look, so exhaustively had it been har- 
vested and gleaned. Fences, sheds, everything had a 
ruined look, and were eloquent of poverty. No animal 
was around anywhere, no living thing in sight. The 
stillness was awful, it was like the stillness of death. 
The cabin was a one-story one, whose thatch was 
black with age, and ragged from lack of repair. 

The door stood a trifle ajar. We approached it 
stealthily— on tiptoe and at half-breath— for that is 
the way one’s feeling makes him do, at such a time. 
The king knocked. We waited. No answer. Knocked 
again. No answer. I pushed the door softly open 
and looked in. I made out some dim forms, and a 
woman started up from the ground and stared at me, 
as one does who is wakened from sleep. Presently 
she found her voice: 

‘*Have mercy!’’ she pleaded. ‘‘ All is taken, 
nothing is left.’’ 

‘‘T have not come to take anything, poor woman.” 

** You are not a priest?’’ 

ae No.’ 5] 

*‘ Nor come not from the lord of the manor?’’ 

(258, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 259 


**'No, I am a stranger.”’ 

“*Oh, then, for the fear of God, who visits with 
misery and death such as be harmless, tarry not here, 
but fly! This place is under his curse—and _his 
Church’s,”’ 

*“Let me come in and help you — you are sick and 
in trouble.’’ 

I was better used to the dim light now. I could see 
her hollow eyes fixed upon me. I could see how 
emaciated she was. 

“TI tell you the place is under the Church’s ban. 
Save yourself — and go, before some straggler see thee 
here, and report it.’’ 

** Give yourself no trouble about me; I don’t care 
anything for the Church’s curse. Let me help you.”’ 

** Now all good spirits —if there be any such— 
bless thee for that word. Would God I had a sup of 
water! — but hold, hold, forget I said it, and fly; for 
there is that here that even he that feareth not the 
Church must fear: this disease whereof we die. Leave 
us, thou brave, good stranger, and take with thee such 
whole and sincere blessing as them that be accursed 
can give.”’ 

But before this I had picked up a wooden bowl and 
was rushing past the king on my way to the brook. 
It was ten yards away. When I got back and entered, 
the king was within, and was opening the shutter that 
closed the window-hole, to let in air and light. The 
place was full of a foul stench. I put the bowl to the 
woman’s lips, and as she gripped it with her eager 
talons the shutter came open and a strong light flooded 
her face. Smallpox! 

I sprang to the king, and said in his ear: 

**Out of the door on the instant, sire! the woman 
is dying of that disease that wasted the skirts of 
Camelot two years ago.”’ 

Q 


260 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


He did not budge. 

‘Of a truth I shall remain — and likewise help.’’ 

I whispered again: 

‘* King, it must not be. You must go.”’ 

‘* Ye mean well, and ye speak not unwisely. But it 
were shame that a king should know fear, and shame 
that belted knight should withhold his hand where be 
such as need succor. Peace, I will not go. It is you 
who must go. The Church’s ban is not upon me, but 
it forbiddeth you to be here, and she will deal with 
you with a heavy hand an word come to her of your 
trespass.’’ 

It was a desperate place for him to be in, and might 
cost him his life, but it was no use to argue with him. 
If he considered his knightly honor at stake here, that 
was the end of argument; he would stay, and nothing 
could prevent it; I was aware of that. And so I 
dropped the subject. The woman spoke: 

‘* Fair sir, of your kindness will ye climb the ladder 
there, and bring me news of what ye find? Be not 
afraid to report, for times can come when even a 
mother’s heart is past breaking — being already broke.”’ 

‘* Abide,’’ said the king, ‘‘ and give the woman to 
eat. I will go.’’ And he put down the knapsack. 

I turned to start, but the king had already started. 
He halted, and looked down upon a man who lay ina 
dim light, and had not noticed us thus far, or spoken. 

““Ts it your husband?’’ the king asked. 

eRe i: 

““Is he asleep ?’’ 

‘“God be thanked for that one charity, yes —— these 
three hours. Where shall I pay to the full, my grati- 
tude! for my heart is bursting with it for that sleep he 
sleepeth now.”’ 

I said: 

“We will be careful. We will not wake him.’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 2614 


** Ah, no, that ye will not, for he is dead.’’ 

** Dead ?”’ 

** Yes, what triumph it is to know it! None can 
harm him, none insult him more. He is in heaven 
now, and happy; or if not there, he bides in hell and 
is content; for in that place he will find neither abbot 
nor yet bishop. We were boy and girl together; we 
were man and wife these five and twenty years, and 
never separated till this day. Think how long that is 
to love and suffer together. This morning was he out 
of his mind, and in his fancy we were boy and girl 
again and wandering in the happy fields; and so in 
that innocent glad converse wandered he far and 
farther, still lightly gossiping, and entered into those 
other fields we know not of, and was shut away from 
mortal sight. And so there was no parting, for in his 
fancy I went with him; he knew not but I went with 
him, my hand in his—my young soft hand, not this 
withered claw. Ah, yes, to go, and know it not; to 
separate and know it not; how could one go peace- 
fuller than that? It was his reward for a cruel life 
patiently borne.’’ 

There was a slight noise from the direction of the 
dim corner where the ladder was. It was the king 
descending. I could see that he was bearing some- 
thing in one arm, and assisting himself with the other. 
He came forward into the light; upon his breast lay a 
slender girl of fifteen. She was but half conscious; 
she was dying of smallpox. Here was heroism at its 
last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this 
was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with 
all the odds against the challenger, no reward set upon 
the contest, and no admiring world in silks and cloth 
of gold to gaze and applaud; and yet the king’s bear- 
ing was as serenely brave as it had always been in those 
cheaper contests where knight meets knight in equal 


~ 262 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


fight and clothed in protecting steel. He was great 
now; sublimely great. The rude statues of his ances- 
tors in his palace should have an addition—I would 
see to that; and it would not be a mailed king killing 
a giant or a dragon, like the rest, it would be a king 
in commoner’s garb bearing death in his arms that a 
peasant mother might look her last upon her child and 
be comforted. 

He laid the girl down by her mother, who poured 
out endearments and caresses from an overflowing 
heart, and one could detect a flickering faint light of 
response in the child’s eyes, but that was all. The 
mother hung over her, kissing her, petting her, and 
imploring her to speak, but the lips onty moved and 
no sound came. I snatched my liquor flask from my 
knapsack, but the woman forbade me, and said: 

‘*No—she does not suffer; it is better so. It 
might bring her back to life. None that be so good 
and kind as ye are would do her that cruel hurt. For 
look you — what is left to live for? Her brothers are 
gone, her father is gone, her mother goeth, the 
Church’s curse is upon her, and none may shelter or 
befriend her even though she lay perishing in the road. 
She is desolate. I have not asked you, good heart, if 
her sister be still on live, here overhead; I had no 
need; ye had gone back, else, and not left the poor 
thing forsaken —’’ 

““She lieth at peace,’ 
subdued voice. 

‘“‘T would not change it. How rich is this day in 
happiness! Ah, my Annis, thou shalt join thy sister 
soon—thou’rt on thy way, and these be merciful 
friends that will not hinder.’’ 

And so she fell to murmuring and cooing over the 
girl again, and softly stroking her face and hair, and 
kissing her and calling her by endearing names; but 


’ 


interrupted the king, in a 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 263 


there was scarcely sign of response now in the glazing 
eyes. I saw tears well from the king’s eyes, and 
trickle down his face. The woman noticed them, too, 
and said: ti: 

**Ah, I know that sign: thou’st a wife at home, 
poor soul, and you and she have gone hungry to bed, 
many’s the time, that the little ones might have your 
crust; you know what poverty is, and the daily insults 
of your betters, and the heavy hand of the Church and 
the king.”’ | 

The king winced under this accidental home-shot, 
but kept still; he was learning his part; and he was 
playing it well, too, for a pretty dull beginner. I 
struck up a diversion. I offered the woman food and 
liquor, but she refused both. She would allow noth- 
ing to come between her and the release of death. 
Then I slipped away and brought the dead child from 
aloft, and laid it by her. This broke her down again, 
and there was another scene that was full of heart- 
break. By and by I made another diversion, and 
beguiled her to sketch her story. 

‘*'Ye know it well yourselves, having suffered it— 
for truly none of our condition in Britain escape it. 
It is the old, weary tale. We fought and struggled 
and succeeded; meaning by success, that we lived and 
did not die; more than that is not to be claimed. No 
troubles came that we could not outlive, till this year 
brought them; then came they all at once, as one 
might say, and overwhelmed us. Years ago the lord 
of the manor planted certain fruit trees on our farm; 
in the best part of it, too—a grievous wrong and 
shame —’’ 

** But it was his right,’’ interrupted the king. 

** None denieth that, indeed; an the law mean any- 
thing, what is the lord’s is his, and what is mine is his 
also. Our farm was ours by lease, therefore ’twas 


264 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


likewise his, to do with it as he would. Some little 
time ago, three of those trees were found hewn down. 
Our three grown sons ran frightened to report the 
crime. Well, in his lordship’s dungeon there they lie, 
who saith there shall they lie and rot till they confess. 
They have naught to confess, being innocent, where- 
fore there will they remain until they die. Ye know 
that right well, I ween. Think how this left us; a 
man, a woman and two children, to gather a crop that 
was planted by so much greater force, yes, and pro- 
tect it night and day from pigeons and prowling 
animals that be sacred and must not be hurt by any 
of our sort. When my lord’s crop was nearly ready 
for the harvest, so also was ours; when his bell rang 
to call us to his fields to harvest his crop for nothing, 
he would not allow that I and my two girls should 
count for our three captive sons, but for only two of 
them; so, for the lacking one were we daily fined. 
All this time our own crop was perishing through neg- 
lect; and so both the priest and his lordship fined us 
because their shares of it were suffering through 
damage. In the end the fines ate up our crop—and 
they took it all; they took it all and made us harvest 
it for them, without pay or food, and we starving. 
Then the worst came when I, being out of my mind 
with hunger and loss of my boys, and grief to see my 
husband and my little maids in rags and misery and 
despair, uttered a deep blasphemy — oh! a thousand 
of them ! — against the Church and the Church’s ways. 
It was ten days ago. I had fallen sick with this dis- 
ease, and it was to the priest I said the words, for he 
was come to chide me for lack of due humility under 
the chastening hand of God. He carried my trespass 
to his betters; I was stubborn; wherefore, presently 
upon my head and upon all heads that were dear to - 
me, fell the curse of Rome. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 265 


** Since that day we are avoided, shunned with horror. 
None has come near this hut to know whether we live 
ornot. The rest of us were taken down. Then I 
roused me and got up, as wife and mother will. It 
was little they could have eaten in any case; it was 
less than little they had to eat. But there was water, 
and I gave them that. How they craved it! and how 
they blessed it! But the end came yesterday; my 
strength broke down. Yesterday was the last time I 
ever saw my husband and this youngest child alive. I 
have lain here all these hours—these ages, ye may 
say —listening, listening for any sound up there 
that —’’ 

She gave a sharp quick glance at her eldest daughter, 
then cried out, ‘‘ Oh, my darling!’’ and feebly gath- 
ered the stiffening form to her sheltering arms. She 
had recognized the death-rattle. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


THE TRAGDEY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE 


T midnight all was over, and we sat in the presence 

of four corpses. We covered them with such 

rags as we could find, and started away, fastening the 

door behind us. Their home must be these people’s 

grave, for they could not have Christian burial, or be 

admitted to consecrated ground. They were as dogs, 

wild beasts, lepers, and no soul that valued its hope of 

eternal life would throw it away by meddling in any 
sort with these rebuked and smitten outcasts. 

We had not moved four steps when I caught a sound 
as of footsteps upon gravel. My heart flew to my 
throat. We must not be seen coming from that house. 
I plucked at the king’s robe and we drew back and 
took shelter behind the corner of the cabin. 

‘Now we are safe,’’ I said, ‘‘ but it was a close 
call—so to speak. If the night had been lighter he 
might have seen us, no doubt, he seemed to be so 
near. 

‘* Mayhap it is but a beast and not a man at all.”’ 

‘“True. But man or beast, it will be wise to stay 
here a minute and let it get by and out of the way.’’ 

** Hark! It cometh hither.’’ 

True again. The step was coming toward us— 
straight toward the hut. It must be a beast, then, and 
we might as well have saved our trepidation. I was 

(266) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 267 


going to step out, but the king laid his hand upon my 
arm. There was a moment of silence, then we heard 
a soft knock on the cabin door. It made me shiver. 
Presently the knock was repeated, and then we heard 
these words in a guarded voice: 

‘“Mother! Father! Open— we have got free, and 
we bring news to pale your cheeks but glad your 
hearts; and we may not tarry, but must fly! And— 
but they answer not. Mother! father !—’’ 

I drew the king toward the other end of the hut and 
whispered : 

** Come — now we can get to the road.’’ 

The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just 
then we heard the door give way, and knew that those 
desolate men were in the presence of their dead. 

‘“Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a 
light, and then will follow that which it would break 
your heart to hear.’’ 

He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were 
in the road I ran; and after a moment he threw dig- 
nity aside and followed. I did not want to think of 
what was happening in the hut—I couldn’t bear it; I 
’ wanted to drive it out of my mind; so I struck into 
the first subject that lay under that one in my mind: 

“*T have had the disease those people died of, and 
so have nothing to fear; but if you have not had it 
also —’’ 

He broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and 
it was his conscience that was troubling him: 

‘“These young men have got free, they say — but 
how ? It is not likely that their lord hath set them 
tree,’ 

‘* Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped.”’ 

‘“That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, 
and your suspicion doth confirm it, you having the 


same fear.’’ 
18 


268 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘*T should not call it by that name though. Ido 
suspect that they escaped, but if they did, 1 am not 
sorry, certainly.’’ 

‘*T am not sorry, I think — but—”’ 

‘* What is it? What is there for one to be troubled 
about ?’’ 

‘* Tf they did escape, then are we bound in duty to 
lay hands upon them and deliver them again to their 
lord; for it is not seemly that one of his quality should 
suffer a so insolent and high-handed outrage from 
persons of their base degree.”’ 

There it was again. He could see only one side of 
it. He was born so, educated so, his veins were full 
of ancestral blood that was rotten with this sort of 
unconscious brutality, brought down by inheritance 
from a long procession of hearts that had each done 
its share toward poisoning the stream. To imprison 
these men without proof, and starve their kindred, was 
no harm, for they were merely peasants and subject to 
the will and pleasure of their lord, no matter what 
fearful form it might take; but for these men to break 
out of unjust captivity was insult and outrage, and a 
thing not to be*countenanced by any conscientious 
person who knew his duty to his sacred caste. 

I worked more than half an hour before I got him to 
change the subject—and even then an outside matter 
did it for me. This was a something which caught our 
eyes as we struck the summit of a small hill—a red 
glow, a good way off. 

** That’s a fire,’’ said I. 

Fires interested me considerably, because I was get- 
ting a good deal of an insurance business started, and 
was also training some horses and building some steam 
fire-engines, with an eye to a paid fire department by 
and by. The priests opposed both my fire and life in- 
surance, on the ground that it was an insolent attempt 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 269 


to hinder the decrees of God; and if you pointed out 
that they did not hinder the decrees in the least, but 
only modified the hard consequences of them if you 
took out policies and had luck, they retorted that that 
was gambling against the decrees of God, and was 
just as bad. So they managed to damage those in- 
dustries more or less, but I got even on my Accident 
business. As a rule, a knight is a lummox, and some 
times even a labrick, and hence open to pretty poor 
arguments when they come glibly from a supersti- 
tion-monger, but even e could see the practical side 
of a thing once in a while; and so of late you couldn’t 
clean up a tournament and pile the result without finding 
one of my accident-tickets in every helmet. 

We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and 
stillness, looking toward the red blur in the distance, 
and trying to make out the meaning of a far-away 
murmur that rose and fell fitfully on the night. Some- 
times it swelled up and for a moment seemed less 
remote; but when we were hopefully expecting it to 
betray its cause and nature, it dulled and sank again, 
carrying its mystery with it. We started down the hill 
in its direction, and the winding road plunged us at 
once into almost solid darkness— darkness that was 
packed and crammed in between two tall forest walls. 
We groped along down for half a mile, perhaps, that 
murmur growing more and more distinct all the time, 
the coming storm threatening more and more, with 
now and then a little shiver of wind, a faint show of 
lightning, and dull grumblings of distant thunder. I 
was in the lead. I ran against something—a soft 
heavy something which gave, slightly, to the impulse 
of my weight; at the same moment the lightning glared 
out, and within a foot of my face was the writhing face 
of a man who was hanging from the limb of a tree! 


That is, it seemed to be writhing, but it was not. It 
18 


270 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


was a grewsome sight. Straightway there was an ear- 
splitting explosion of thunder, and the bottom of 
heaven fell out; the rain poured down in a deluge. 
No matter, we must try to cut this man down, on the 
chance that there might be life in him yet, mustn’t 
we? The lightning came quick and sharp now, and 
the place was alternately noonday and midnight. One 
moment the man would be hanging before me in an 
intense light, and the next he was blotted out again in 
the darkness. I told the king we must cut him down. 
The king at once objected. 

‘‘Tf he hanged himself, he was willing to lose him 
property to his lord; so let him be. If others hanged 
him, belike they had the right— let him hang.’”’ 

«6 But Teee,§: 

‘*But me no buts, but even leave him as he is. And 
for yet another reason. When the lightning cometh 
again — there, look abroad.”’ 

Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us! 

“Tt is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies 
unto dead folk. They are past thanking you. Come 
— it is unprofitable to tarry here.’’ 

There was reason in what he said, so we moved on. 
Within the next mile we counted six more hanging 
forms by the blaze of the lightning, and altogether it 
was a grisly excursion. That murmur was a murmur 
no longer, it was a roar; a roar of men’s voices. A 
man came flying by now, dimly through the darkness, 
and other men chasing him. They disappeared. Pres- 
ently another case of the kind occurred, and then an- 
other and another. Then a sudden turn of the road 
brought us in sight of that fire— it was a large manor- 
house, and little or nothing was left of it— and every- 
where men were flying and other men raging after 
them in pursuit. 

J warned the king that this was not a safe place for 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 271 


strangers. We would better get away from the light, 
until matters should improve. We stepped back a 
little, and hid in the edge of the wood. From this 
hiding-place we saw both mien and women hunted by 
the mob. The fearful work went on until nearly dawn. 
Then, the fire being out and the storm spent, the voices 
and flying footsteps presently ceased, and darkness and 
stillness reigned again. 

We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and 
although we were worn out and sleepy, we kept on 
until we had put this place some miles behind us. 
Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal 
burner, and got what was to be had. A woman was 
up and about, but the man was still asleep, on a straw 
shake-down, on the clay floor. The woman seemed 
uneasy until I explained that we were travelers and had 
lost our way and been wandering in the woods all 
night, She became talkative, then, and asked if we 
had heard of the terrible goings-on at the manor-house 
of Abblasoure. Yes, we had heard of them, but what 
we wanted now was rest and sleep. The king broke in: 

‘«Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for 
we be perilous company, being late come from people 
that died of the Spotted Death.”’ 

It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the 
commonest decorations of the nation was the waffle- 
iron face. I had early noticed that the woman and her 
husband were both so decorated. She made us entirely 
welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was im- 
mensely impressed by the king’s proposition; for, of 
course, it was a good deal of an event in her life to 
run across a person of the king’s humble appearance 
who was ready to buy a man’s house for the sake of a 
night’s lodging. It gave her a large respect for us, 
and she strained the lean possibilities of her hovel to 
the utmost to make us comfortable. 


272 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up 
hungry enough to make cotter fare quite palatable to 
the king, the more particularly as it was scant in quan- 
tity. And also in variety; it consisted solely of onions, 
salt, and the national black bread — made out of horse- 
feed. The woman told us about the affair of the even- 
ing before. At ten or eleven at night, when everybody 
was in bed, the manor-house burst into flames. The 
country-side swarmed to the rescue, and the family 
were saved, with one exception, the master. He did 
not appear. Everybody was frantic over this loss, and 
two brave yeomen sacrificed their lives in ransacking 
the burning house seeking that valuable personage. 
But after a while he was found— what was left of 
him— which was his corpse. It was in a copse three 
hundred yards away, bound, gagged, stabbed in a 
dozen places. 

Who had done this? Suspicion fell upon a humble 
family in the neighborhood who had been lately treated 
with peculiar harshness by the baron; and from these 
people the suspicion easily extended itself to their 
relatives and familiars. A suspicion was enough; my 
lord’s liveried retainers proclaimed an instant crusade 
against these people, and were promptly joined by the 
community in general. The woman’s husband had 
been active with the mob, and had not returned home 
until nearly dawn. He was gone now to find out 
what the general result had been. While we were still 
talking he came back from his quest. His report was 
revolting enough, Eighteen persons hanged or butch- 
ered, and two yeomen and thirteen prisoners lost in 
the fire. 

** And how many prisoners were there altogether in 
the vaults ?’’ 

** Thirteen.’’ 

““ Then every one of them was lost?’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 273 


+ yes, all,?” 

** But the people arrived in time to save the family; 
how is it they could save none of the prisoners?”’ 

The man looked puzzled, and said: 

*“Would one unlock the vaults at such a time? 
Marry, some would have escaped.’’ 

** Then you mean that nobody ad unlock them ?’’ 

** None went near them, either to lock or unlock. 
It standeth to reason that the bolts were fast; where- 
fore it was only needful to establish a watch, so that if 
any broke the bonds he might not escape, but be 
taken. None were taken.’’ 

** Natheless, three did escape,’’ said the king, ‘‘and 
ye will do well to publish it and set justice upon their 
track, for these murthered the baron and fired the 
house.’’ 

I was just expecting he would come out with that. 
For a moment the man and his wife showed an eager 
interest in this news and an impatience to go out and 
spread it; then a sudden something else betrayed itself 
in their faces, and they began to ask questions. I 
answered the questions myself, and narrowly watched 
the effects produced. I was soon satisfied that the 
knowledge of who these three prisoners were had some- 
how changed the atmosphere; that our hosts’ con- 
tinued eagerness to go and spread the news was now 
only pretended and not real. The king did not notice 
the change, and I was glad of that. I worked the 
conversation around toward other details of the night’s 
proceedings, and noted that these people were relieved 
to have it take that direction. 

The painful thing observable about all this business 
was the alacrity with which this oppressed community 
had turned their cruel hands against their own class in 
the interest of the common oppressor. This man and 
woman seemed to feel that in a quarrel between a 

18 | 


274 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


person of their own class and his lord, it was the 
natural and proper and rightful thing for that poor 
devil’s whole caste to side with the master and fight 
his battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire 
into the rights or wrongs of the matter. This man 
had been out helping to hang his neighbors, and had 
done his work with zeal, and yet was aware that there 
was nothing against them but a mere suspicion, with 
nothing back of it describable as evidence, still neither 
he nor his wife seemed to see anything horrible about it. 

This was depressing — to a man with the dream of a 
republic in his head. It reminded me of a time thirteen 
centuries away, when the ‘‘ poor whites’’ of our South 
who were always despised and frequently insulted by 
the slave-lords around them, and who owed their base 
condition simply to the presence of slavery in their 
midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to. side with the 
slave-lords in all political moves for the upholding and 
perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder 
their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to 
prevent the destruction of that very institution which 
degraded them. And there was only one redeeming 
feature connected with that pitiful piece of history; 
and that was, that secretly the ‘* poor white’’ did de- 
test the slave-lord, and did feel his own shame. That 
feeling was not brought to the surface, but the fact 
that it was there and could have been brought out, under 
favoring circumstances, was something—din fact, it 
was enough; for it showed that a man is at bottom a 
man, after all, even if it doesn’t show on the outside. 

Well, as it turned out, this charcoal burner was just 
the twin of the Southern *‘ poor white’’ of the far 
future. The king presently showed impatience, and 
said: 

‘“An ye prattle here all the day, justice will mis- 
carry. Think ye the criminals will abide in their 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 275 


father’s house? They are fleeing, they are not wait- 
ing. You should look to it that a party of horse be 
set upon their track.’’ 

The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, 
and the man looked flustered and irresolute. I said: 

““ Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you, 
and explain which direction I think they would try to 
take. If they were merely resisters of the gabelle or 
some kindred absurdity I would try to protect them 
from capture; but when men murder a person of high 
degree and likewise burn his house, that is another 
matter.’’ 

The last remark was for the king—to quiet him. 
On the road the man pulled his resolution together, 
and began the march with a steady gait, but there was 
no eagerness in it. By and by I said: 

** What relation were these men to you —cousins?’’ 

He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let 
him, and stopped, trembling. 

‘Ah, my God, how know ye that?’’ 

**T didn’t know it; it was a chance guess.”’ 

**Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they 
were, too.’’ 

** Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?’’ 

He didn’t quite know how to take that; but he said, 
hesitatingly : 

6 Ye-s.’ ’ 

“Then I think you are a damned scoundrel !’’ 

It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel. 

** Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye 
mean that ye would not betray me an I failed of my 
duty.’’ 

‘*Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the 
duty to keep still and let those men get away. They’ve 
done a righteous deed.’’ 

He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with ap- 

B 


276 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


prehension at the same time. He looked up and down 
the road to see that no one was coming, and then said 
in a cautious voice: 

‘* From what land come you, brother, that you speak 
such perilous words, and seem not to be afraid ?’’ 

‘“ They are not perilous words when spoken to one 
of my own caste, I take it. You would not tell any- 
body I said them?’’ 

‘‘I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses 
first.’’ 

‘“ Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears 
of your repeating it. I think devil’s work has been 
done last night upon those innocent poor people. 
That old baron got only what he deserved. If I had 
my way, all his kind should have the same luck.’’ 

Fear and depression vanished from the man’s manner, 
and gratefulness and a brave animation took their 
place: 

‘*Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap 
for my undoing, yet are they such refreshment that to 
hear them again and others like to them, I would go to 
the gallows happy, as having had one good feast at 
least in a starved life. And I will say my say now, 
and ye may report it if ye be so minded. I helped to 
hang my neighbors for that it were peril to my own 
life to show lack of zeal in the master’s cause; the 
others helped for none other reason. All rejoice to- 
day that he is dead, but all do go about seemingly 
sorrowing, and shedding the hypocrite’s tear, for in 
that lies safety. I have said the words, I have said the 
words! the only ones that have ever tasted good in 
my mouth, and the reward of that taste is sufficient. 
Lead on, an ye will, be it even to the scaffold, for I 
am ready,’’ 

There it was, you see. A man zs aman, at bottom. 
Whole ages of abuse and oppression cannot crush the 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 277 


manhood clear out of him. Whoever thinks it a mis- 
take is himself mistaken. Yes, there is plenty good 
enough material for a republic in the most degraded 
people that ever existed— even the Russians; plenty 
of manhood in them—even in the Germans — if one 
could but force it out of its timid and suspicious 
privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any 
throne that ever was set up and any nobility that ever 
supported it. We should see certain things yet, let us’ 
hope and believe. First, a modified monarchy, till 
Arthur’s days were done, then the destruction of the 
throne, nobility abolished, every member of it bound 
out to some useful trade, universal suffrage instituted, 
and the whole government placed in the hands of the 
men and women of the nation there to remain. Yes, 
there was no occasion to give up my dream yet a while. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


MARCO 


E strolled along ina sufficiently indolent fashion 
now, and talked. We must dispose of about 
the amount of time it ought to take to go to the little 
hamlet of Abblasoure and put justice on the track of 
those murderers and get back home again. And mean- 
time I had an auxiliary interest which had never paled 
yet, never lost its novelty for me since I had been in 
Arthur’s kingdom: the behavior—born of nice and 
exact subdivisions of caste—of chance passers-by 
toward each other. Toward the shaven monk who 
trudged along with his cowl tilted back and the sweat 
washing down his fat jowls, the coal-burner was deeply 
reverent; to the gentleman he was abject; with the 
small farmer and the free mechanic he was cordial and 
gossipy; and when a slave passed by with a counte- 
nance respectfully lowered, this chap’s nose was in the 
air — he couldn’t even see him. Well, there are times 
when one would like to hang the whole human race 
and finish the farce. 

Presently we struck an incident. A small mob of 
half-naked boys and girls came tearing out of the 
woods, scared and shrieking. The eldest among them 
were not more than twelve or fourteen years old. 
They implored help, but they were so beside them- 
selves that we couldn’t make out what the matter was. 

(278) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 279 


However, we plunged into the wood, they skurrying in 
the lead, and the trouble was quickly revealed: they 
had hanged a little fellow with a bark rope, and he was 
kicking and struggling, in the process of choking to 
death. We rescued him, and fetched him around. It 
was some more human nature; the admiring little folk 
imitating their elders; they were playing mob, and 
had achieved a success which promised to be a good 
deal more serious than they had bargained for. 

It was not a dull excursion for me. I managed to 
put in the time very well. I made various acquaintance- 
ships, and in my quality of stranger was able to ask as 
many questions as I wanted to. A thing which natur- 
ally interested me, as a statesman, was the matter of 
wages. I picked up what I could under that head 
during the afternoon. A man who hasn’t had much 
experience, and doesn’t think, is apt to measure a 
nation’s prosperity or lack of prosperity by the mere 
size of the prevailing wages; if the wages be high, the 
nation is prosperous; if low, it isn’t. Which is an 
error. It isn’t what sum you get, it’s how much you 
can buy with it, that’s the important thing; and it’s 
that that tells whether your wages are high in fact or 
only high in name. I could remember how it was in 
the time of our great civil war in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. In the North a carpenter got three dollars a 
day, gold valuation; in the South he got fifty — pay- 
able in Confederate shinplasters worth a dollar a 
bushel. In the North a suit of overalls cost three 
dollars-— a day’s wages; in the South it cost seventy- 
five — which was two days’ wages. Other things were 
in proportion. Consequently, wages were twice as 
high in the North as they were in the South, because 
the one wage had that much more purchasing power 
than the other had. 

Yes, I made various acquaintances in the hamlet, 


280 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


and a thing that gratified me a good deal was to find 
our new coins in circulation— lots of milrays, lots of 
mills, lots of cents, a good many nickels, and some 
silver; all this among the artisans and commonalty 
generally; yes, and even some gold — but that was at 
the bank, that is to say, the goldsmith’s. I dropped 
in there while Marco, the son of Marco, was haggling 
with a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt, 
and asked for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece. 
They furnished it— that is, after they had chewed the 
piece, and rung it on the counter, and tried acid on it, 
and asked me where I got it, and who I was, and 
where I was from, and where I was going to, and 
when I expected to get there, and perhaps a couple of 
hundred more questions; and when they got aground, 
I went right on and furnished them a lot of informa- 
tion voluntarily; told them I owned a dog, and his 
name was Watch, and my first wife was a Free Will 
Baptist, and her grandfather was a Prohibitionist, and 
I used to know a man who had two thumbs on each 
hand and a wart on the inside of his upper lip, and 
died in the hope of a glorious resurrection, and so on, 
and so on, and so on, till even that hungry village 
questioner began to look satisfied, and also a shade 
put out; but he had to respect a man of my financial 
strength; and so he didn’t give me any lip, but I 
noticed he took it out of his underlings, which was a 
perfectly natural thing to do. Yes, they changed my 
twenty, but I judged it strained the bank a little, which 
was a thing to be expected, for it was the same as 
walking into a paltry village store in the nineteenth 
century and requiring the boss of it to change a two- 
thousand-dollar bill for you all of asudden. He could 
do it, maybe; but at the same time he would wonder 
how a small farmer happened to be carrying so much 
money around in his pocket; which was probably this 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 281 


goldsmith’s thought, too; for he followed me tc 
the door and stood there gazing after me with reverent 
admiration. 

Our new money was not only handsomely circulating, 
but its language was already glibly in use; that is to 
say, people had dropped the names of the former 
moneys, and spoke of things as being worth so many 
dollars or cents or mills or milrays now. It was very 
gratifying. We were progressing, that was sure. 

I got to know several master mechanics, but about 
the most interesting fellow among them was the black- 
smith, Dowley. He was a live man and a brisk talker, 
and had two journeymen and three apprentices, and was 
doing a raging business. In fact, he was getting rich, 
hand over fist, and was vastly respected. Marco was 
very proud of having such a man for a friend. He 
had taken me there ostensibly to let me see the big 
establishment which bought so much of his charcoal, 
but really to let me see what easy and almost familiar 
terms he was on with this great man. Dowley and I 
fraternized at once; I had had just such picked men, 
splendid fellows, under me in the Colt Arms Factory. 
I was bound to see more of him, so I invited him to 
come out to Marco’s Sunday, and dine with us. 
Marco was appalled, and held his breath; and when 
the grandee accepted, he was so grateful that he almost 
forgot to be astonished at the condescension. 

Marco’s joy was exuberant— but only for a mo- 
ment; then he grew thoughtful, then sad; and when 
he heard me tell Dowley I should have Dickon, the 
boss mason, and Smug, the boss wheelwright, out 
there, too, the coal-dust on his face turned to chalk, 
and he lost his grip. But I knew what was the matter 
with him; it was the expense. He saw ruin before 
him; he judged that his financial days were numbered. 
However, on our way to invite the others, I said: 


282 A Yankee in King Arthui’s Court 


‘*You must allow me to have these friends come; 
and you must also allow me to pay the costs.”’ 

His face cleared, and he said with spirit: 

‘*But not all of it, not all of it. Ye cannot well 
bear a burden like to this alone.’’ 

I stopped him, and said: 

‘* Now let’s understand each other on the spot, old 
friend. I am only a farm bailiff, it is true; but I am 
not poor, nevertheless. I have been very fortunate 
this year— you would be astonished to know how I 
have thriven. I tell you the honest truth when I say 
I could squander away as many as a dozen feasts like 
this and never care ¢hat for the expense!’’ and I 
snapped my fingers. I could see myself rise a foot at 
atime in Marco’s estimation, and when I fetched out 
those last words I was become a very tower for style 
and altitude. ‘*‘So you see, you must let me have my 
way. You can’t contribute a cent to this orgy, that’s 
settled,’’ 

“It’s grand and good of you —’”’ 

‘* No, it isn’t. You’ve opened your house to Jones 
and me in the most generous way; Jones was remark- 
mg upon it to-day, just before you came back from 
the village; for although he wouldn’t be likely to say 
such a thing to you —because Jones isn’t a talker, and 
is diffident in society—he has a good heart and a 
grateful, and knows how to appreciate it when he is 
well treated; yes, you and your wife have been very 
hospitable toward us —’’ 

‘* Ah, brother, ’tis nothing — such hospitality !’’ 

‘But it zs something; the best a man has, freely 
given, is always something, and is as good as a prince 
can do, and ranks right along beside it—for even a 
prince can but do his best. And so we’ll shop around 
and get up this layout now, and don’t you worry about 
the expense. I’m one of the worst spendthrifts that ever 





A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 283 


was born. Why, do you know, sometimes in a single 
week I spend—but never mind about that— you’d 
never believe it anyway.”’ 

And so we went gadding along, dropping in here 
and there, pricing things, and gossiping with the shop- 
keepers about the riot, and now and then running 
across pathetic reminders of it, in the persons of 
shunned and tearful and houseless remnants of families 
whose homes had been taken from them and their 
parents butchered or hanged. The raiment of Marco 
and his wife was of coarse tow-linen and linsey-woolsey 
respectively, and resembled township maps, it being 
made up pretty exclusively of patches which had been 
added, township by township, in the course of five or 
six years, until hardly a hand’s-breadth of the original 
garments was surviving and present. Now I wanted 
to fit these people out with new suits, on account of 
that swell company, and I didn’t know just how to get 
at it with delicacy, until at last it struck me that as I 
had already been liberal in inventing wordy gratitude 
for the king, it would be just the thing to back it up 
with evidence of a substantial sort; so I said: 

**And Marco, there’s another thing which you must 
permit—out of kindness for Jones—because you 
wouldn’t want to offend him. He was very anxious 
to testify his appreciation in some way, but he is so 
difident he couldn’t venture it himself, and so he 
begged me to buy some little things and give them to 
you and Dame Phyllis and let him pay for them with- 
out your ever knowing they came from him—you 
know how a delicate person feels about that sort of 
thing—-and so I said I would, and we would keep 
mum. Well, his idea was, a new outfit of clothes for 
you both —’’ 

** Oh, it is wastefulness! It may not be, brother, it 
may not be. Consider the vastness of the sum —’’ 

19 


284 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘** Hang the vastness of the sum! Try to keep quiet 
for a moment, and see how it would seem; a body 
can’t get in a word edgeways, you talk so much. You 
ought to cure that, Marco; it isn’t good form, you 
know, and it will grow on you if you don’t check it. 
Yes, we’ll step in here now and price this man’s stuff 
—-and don’t forget to remember to not let on to Jones 
that you know he had anything to do with it. You 
can’t think how curiously sensitive and proud he is. 
He’s a farmer — pretty fairly well-to-do farmer — and 
I’m his bailiff; dv¢—the imagination of that man! 
Why, sometimes when he forgets himself and gets to 
blowing off, you’d think he was one of the swells of 
the earth; and you might listen to him a hundred 
years and never take him for a farmer — especially if 
he talked agriculture. He thinks he’s a Sheol of a 
farmer; thinks he’s old Grayback,from Wayback; but 
between you and me privately he don’t know as much 
about farming as he does about running a kingdom — 
still, whatever he talks about, you want to drop your 
underjaw and listen, the same as if you had never 
heard such incredible wisdom in all your life before, 
and were afraid you might die before you got enough 
of it. That will please Jones.”’ 

It tickled Marco to the marrow to hear about such 
an odd character; but it also prepared him for acci- 
dents; and in my experience when you travel with a 
king who is letting on to be something else and can’t 
remember it more than about half the time, you can’t 
take too many precautions. 

This was the best store we had come across yet; it 
had everything in it, in small quantities, from anvils 
and drygoods all the way down to fish and pinchbeck 
jewelry. I concluded I would bunch my whole invoice 
right here, and not go pricing around any more. So 
I got rid of Marco, by sending him off to invite the 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 285 


mason and the wheelwright, which left the field free to 
me. For I never care to do a thing ina quiet way; 
it’s got to be theatrical or I don’t take any interest in 
it. I showed up money enough, in a careless way, to 
corral the shopkeeper’s respect, and then I wrote down 
a list of the things I wanted, and handed it to him to 
see if he could read it. He could, and was proud to 
show that he could. He said he had been educated by 
a priest, and could both read and write. He ran it 
through, and remarked with satisfaction that it was a 
pretty heavy bill. Well, and so it was, for a little 
concern like that. I was not only providing a swell 
dinner, but some odds and ends of extras. I ordered 
that the things be carted out and delivered at the 
dwelling of Marco, the son of Marco, by Saturday 
evening, and send me the bill at dinner-time Sunday. 
He said I could depend upon his promptness and exacti- 
tude, it was the rule of the house. He also observed 
that he would throw in a couple of miller-guns for the 
Marcos gratis—that everybody was using them now. 
He had a mighty opinion of that clever device. I said: 

**And please fill them up to the middle mark, too; 
and add that to the bill.’’ 

He would, with pleasure. He filled them, and I 
took them with me. Icouldn’t venture to tell him 
that the miller-gun was a little invention of my own, 
and that I had officially ordered that every shopkeeper 
in the kingdom keep them on hand and sell them at 
government price— which was the merest trifle, and 
the shopkeeper got that, not the government. We 
furnished them for nothing. 

The king had hardly missed us when we got back at 
nightfall. He had early dropped again into his dream 
of a grand invasion of Gaul with the whole strength of 
his kingdom at his back, and the afternoon had slipped 
away without his ever coming to himself again. 

19 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


DOWLEY’S HUMILIATION 


ELL, when that cargo arrived toward sunset, Sat- 
urday afternoon, I had my hands full to keep 

the Marcos froni fainting. They were sure Jones and 
I were ruined past help, and they blamed themselves 
as accessories to this bankruptcy. You see, in addi- 
tion to the dinner-materials, which called for a suffi- 
ciently round sum, I had bought a lot of extras for the 
future comfort of the family: for instance, a big lot of 
wheat, a delicacy as rare to the tables of their class as 
was ice-cream to a _ hermit’s; also a sizeable deal 
dinner-table; also two entire pounds of salt, which 
was another piece of extravagance in those people’s 
eyes; also crockery, stools, the clothes, a small cask 
of beer, and so on. I instructed the Marcos to keep 
quiet about this sumptuousness, so as to give me a 
chance to surprise the guests and show off a little. 
Concerning the new clothes, the simple couple were 
like children; they were up and down, all night, to 
see if it wasn’t nearly daylight, so that they could put 
them on, and they were into them at last as much as 
an hour before dawn was due. hen their pleasure — 
not to say delirium — was so fresn and novel and in- 
spiring that the sight of it paid me well for the inter- 
ruptions which my sleep had suffered. The king had 
slept just as usual— like the dead. The Marcos could 

( 286) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 287 


not thank him for their clothes, that being forbidden; 
but they tried every way they could think of to make 
him see how grateful they were. Which all went for 
nothing: he didn’t notice any change. 

It turned out to be one of those rich and rare fall 
days which is just a June day toned down to a degree 
where it is heaven to be out of doors. Toward noon 
the guests arrived, and we assembled under a great tree 
and were soon as sociable as old acquaintances. Even 
the king’s reserve melted a little, though it was some 
little trouble to him to adjust himself to the name of 
Jones along at first I had asked him to try to not 
forget that he was a farmer; but I had also considered 
it prudent to ask him to let the thing stand at that, 
and not elaborate it any. Because he was just the 
kind of person you could depend on to spoil a little 
thing like that if you didn’t warn him, his tongue was 
so handy, and his spirit so willing, and his information 
so uncertain. 

Dowley was in fine feather, and I early got him 
started, and then adroitly worked him around onto his 
own history for a text and himself for a hero, and then 
it was good to sit there and hear him hum. Self-made 
man, you know. They know how to talk. They do 
deserve more credit than any other breed of men, yes, 
that is true; and they are among the very first to find 
it out, too. He told how he had begun life an orphan 
lad without money and without friends able to help 
him; how he had lived as the slaves of the meanest 
master lived; how his day’s work was from sixteen to 
eighteen hours long, and yielded him only enough 
black bread to keep him in a half-fed condition; how 
his faithful endeavors finally attracted the attention of 
a good blacksmith, who came near knocking him dead 
with kindness by suddenly offering, when he was totally 
unprepared, to take him as his bound apprentice for 


288 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


nine years and give him board and clothes and teach 
him the trade —or ‘‘ mystery’’ as Dowley called it. 
That was his first great rise, his first gorgeous stroke 
of fortune; and you saw that he couldn’t yet speak of 
it without a sort of eloquent wonder and delight that 
such a gilded promotion should have fallen to the. lot 
of a common human being. He got no new clothing 
during his apprenticeship, but on his graduation day 
his master tricked him out in spang-new tow-linens 
and made him feel unspeakably rich and fine. 

“T remember me of that day!” the wheelwright 
sang out, with enthusiasm. 

“And I likewise!” cried the mason. ‘I would not 
believe they were thine own; in faith I could not.” 

** Nor other !’’ shouted Dowley, with sparkling eyes. 
**T was like to lose my character, the neighbors wend- 
ing I had mayhap been stealing. It was a great day, 
a great day; one forgetteth not days like that.’’ 

Yes, and his master was a fine man, and prosperous, 
and always had a great feast of meat twice in the year, 
and with it white bread, true wheaten bread; in fact, 
lived like a lord, so to speak. And in time Dowley 
succeeded to the business and married the daughter. 

‘“And now consider what is come to pass,’’ said 
he, impressively. ‘‘ Two times in every month there 
is fresh meat upon my table.’’ He made a pause 
here, to let that fact sink home, then added —‘‘ and 
eight times salt meat.’’ 

‘It is even true,’’ said the wheelwright, with bated 
breath. 

‘* T know it of mine own knowledge,’’ said the mason, 
in the same reverent fashion. 

“On my table appeareth white bread every Sunday 
in the year,’’ added the master smith, with solemnity, 
‘*T leave it to your own consciences, friends, if this ig 
not also true?’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 289 


** By my head, yes,’’ cried the mason. 

“‘T can testify it— and I do,’’ said the wheelwright. 

** And as to furniture, ye shall say yourselves what 
mine equipment is.’? He waved his hand in fine 
gesture of granting frank and unhampered freedom 
of speech, and added: ‘‘Speak as ye are moved; 
speak as ye would speak an I were not here,’’ 

**Ye have five stools, and of the sweetest workman- 
ship at that, albeit your family is but three,’’ said the 
wheelwright, with deep respect. 

‘“And six wooden goblets, and six platters of wood 
and two of pewter to eat and drink from withal,’’ said 
the mason, impressively. ‘‘ And I say it as knowing 
God is my judge, and we tarry not here alway, but 
must answer at the last day for the things said in the 
body, be they false or be they sooth.”’ 

** Now ye know what manner of man I am, brother 
Jones,’’ said the smith, with a fine and friendly conde- 
scension, *‘‘ and doubtless ye would look to find mea 
man jealous of his due of respect and but sparing of 
outgo to strangers till their rating and quality be 
assured, but trouble yourself not, as concerning that; 
wit ye well ye shall find me aman that regardeth not 
these matters but is willing to receive any he as his 
fellow and equal that carrieth a right heart in his body, 
be his worldly estate howsoever modest. And in token 
of it, here is my hand; and I say with my own mouth 
we are equals— equals’’—and he smiled around on 
the company with the satisfaction of a god who is 
doing the handsome and gracious thing and is quite 
well aware of it. 

The king took the hand with a poorly disguised 
reluctance, and let go of it as willingly as a lady lets 
go of a fish; all of which had a good effect, for it was 
mistaken for an embarrassment natural to one who was 
being ramen upon by greatness. 


290 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


The dame brought out the table now, and set it 
under the tree. It caused a visible stir of surprise, it 
being brand new and a sumptuous article of deal. But 
the surprise rose higher still when the dame, with a 
body oozing easy indifference at every pore, but eyes 
that gave it all away by absolutely flaming with vanity, 
slowly unfolded an actual simon-pure tablecloth and 
spread it. That was a notch above even the black- 
smith’s domestic grandeurs, and it hit him hard; you 
could see it. But Marco was in Paradise; you could 
see that, too. Then the dame brought two fine new 
stools — whew! that was a sensation; it was visible in 
the eyes of every guest. Then she brought two more 
—as calmly as she could. Sensation again — with 
awed murmurs. Again she brought two— walking on 
air, she was so proud. The guests were petrified, and 
the mason muttered: 

‘* There is that about earthly pomps which doth 
ever move to reverence.”’ 

As the dame turned away, Marco couldn’t help 
slapping on the climax while the thing was hot; so he 
said with what was meant for a languid composure but 
was a poor imitation of it: 

** These suffice; leave the rest.’’ | 

So there were more yet! It was a fine effect. I 
couldn’t have played the hand better myself. 

From this out, the madam piled up the surprises 
with a rush that fired the general astonishment up to a 
hundred and fifty in the shade, and at the same time 
paralyzed expression of it down to gasped ‘‘ Oh’s”’ 
and ‘‘ Ah’s,’’ and mute upliftings of hands and eyes. 
She fetched crockery — new, and plenty of it; new 
wooden goblets and other table furniture; and beer, 
fish, chicken, a goose, eggs, roast beef, roast mutton, 
a ham, a small roast pig, and a wealth of genuine white 
wheaten bread. Take it by and large, that spread laid 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 291 


everything far and away in the shade that ever that 
crowd had seen before. And while they sat there just 
simply stupefied with wonder and awe, I sort of waved 
my hand as if by accident, and the storekeeper’s son 
emerged from space and said he had come to collect. 

** That’s all right,’’ I said, indifferently. ‘‘ What is 
the amount? give us the items.”’ 

Then he read off this bill, while those three amazed 
men listened, and serene waves of satisfaction rolled 
over my soul and alternate waves of terror and admira- 
tion surged over Marco’s: 


2 pounds salt ‘ ° ° ° ° . . 200 
8 dozen pints beer, inthe wood . . .« ~~~ 800 
3 bushels wheat . : . ° ° : « 2,700 


2 pounds fish . : : . ° ° ° 100 
3 hens ° ° . . ° ° ° . 400 
I goose 5 ° ° ° 2 ° > ° 400 
3 dozen eggs ° ° ° ° : . ° 150 
I roast of beef St . ° ° ° ° : 450 
I roast of mutton ‘ e ° ° . ° 400 
1 ham ° . . ° . . ° ° 800 
1 sucking pig . ° ° ° ° . . 500 
2 crockery dinner sets . ° ° . ° - 6,000 
2 men’s suits and underwear . A ‘ ‘ - 2,800 


1 stuff and 1 linsey-woolsey gown and underwear . 1,600 
8 wooden goblets . ° . ° ° ° : 800 


Various table furniture . ° ° : ° « 10,000 
1 deal table . . . . . . ° = 000 
8 stools . ‘ é ° : ; : + 4,000 


2 miller-guns, loaded . . ° ° : + 3,000 


He ceased. There was a pale and awful silence. 
Not a limb stirred. Nota nostril betrayed the passage 
of breath. 

**Ts that all?’’? I asked, in a voice of the most per- 
fect calmness. 


** All, fair sir, save that certain matters of light mo- 
8 


292 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ment are placed together under a head hight sundries. 
If it would like you, I will sepa—’’ 

**It is of no consequence,’’ I said, accompanying 
the words with a gesture of the most utter indifference ; 
** sive me the grand total, please.’’ 

The clerk leaned against the tree to stay himself, and 
said: 

‘* Thirty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty mil- 
rays !’’ 

The wheelwright fell off his stool, the others grabbed 
the table to save themselves, and there was a deep and 
general ejaculation of: 

‘* God be with us in the day of disaster!” 

The clerk hastened to say: 

** My father chargeth me to say he cannot honorably 
require you to pay it all at this time, and therefore 
only prayeth you —’’ 

I paid no more heed than if it were the idle breeze, 
but, with an air of indifference amounting almost to 
weariness, got out my money and tossed four dollars 
on to the table. Ah, you should have seen them stare! 

The clerk was astonished and charmed. He asked 
me to retain one of the dollars as security, until he 
could go to town and— _ I interrupted: 

‘* What, and fetch back nine cents? Nonsense! 
Take the whole. Keep the change.’’ 

There was an amazed murmur to this effect: 

** Verily this being is wade of money! He throweth 
it away even as it were dirt.’’ 

The blacksmith was a crushed man. 

The clerk took his money and reeled away drunk 
with fortune. I said to Marco and his wife: 

** Good folk, here is a little trifle for you ’’— hand- 
ing the miller-guns as if it were a matter of no conse- 
quence, though each of them contained fifteen cents in 
solid cash; and while the poor creatures went to pieces 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 293 


with astonishment and gratitude, I turned to the others 
and said as calmly as one would ask the time of day: 

** Well, if we are all ready, I judge the dinner is. 
Come, fall to.’’ 

Ah, well, it was immense; yes, it was a daisy. I 
don’t know that I ever put a situation together better, 
or got happier spectacular effects out of the materials 
available. The blacksmith—vwell, he was simply 
mashed. Land! I wouldn’t have felt what that man 

was feeling, for anything in the world. Here he had 
_ been blowing and bragging about his grand meat-feast 
twice a year, and his fresh meat twice a month, and 
his salt meat twice a week, and his white bread every 
Sunday the year round —all for a family of three; the 
entire cost for the year not above 69.2.6 (sixty-nine 
cents, two mills and six milrays), and all of a sudden 
here comes along a man who slashes out nearly four 
dollars on a single blow-out; and not only that, but 
acts as if it made him tired to handle such small sums. 
Yes, Dowley was a good deal wilted, and shrunk-up 
and collapsed; he had the aspect of a bladder-balloon 
that’s been stepped on by a cow. 


CHAPTER XXXIIL 


SIXTH CENTURY POLITICAL ECONOMY 


OWEVER, I made a dead set at him, and before 
the first third of the dinner was reached, I had 

him happy again. It was easy to do—in a country 
of ranks and castes. You see, in a country where 
they have ranks and castes, a man isn’t ever a man, 
he is only part of a man, he can’t ever get his full 
growth. You prove your superiority over him in 
station, or rank, or fortune, and that’s the end of it— 
he knuckles down. You can’t insult him after that. 
No, I don’t mean quite that; of course you caz insuly 
him, I only mean it’s difficult; and so, unless you’ve 
got a lot of useless time on your hands it doesn’t pay 
to try. I had the smith’s reverence now, because ] 
was apparently immensely prosperous and rich; 1] 
could have had his adoration if I had had some 
little gimcrack title of nobility. And not only his, but 
any commoner’s in the land, though he were the 
mightiest production of all the ages, in intellect, worth, 
and character, and I bankrupt in all three. This was 
to remain so, as long as England should exist in the 
earth. With the spirit of prophecy upon me, I could 
look into the future and see her erect statues and 
monuments to her unspeakable Georges and other 
royal and noble clothes-horses, and leave unhonored 

294 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 295 


the creators of this world — after God — Gutenburg, 
Watt, Arkwright, Whitney, Morse, Stephenson, Bell. 

The king got his cargo aboard, and then, the talk 
not turning upon battle, conquest, or iron-clad duel, 
he dulled down to drowsiness and went off to take a 
nap. Mrs. Marco cleared the table, placed the beer 
keg handy, and went away to eat her dinner of leavings 
in humble privacy, and the rest of us soon drifted into 
matters near and dear to the hearts of our sort — busi- 
ness and wages, of course. At a first glance, things 
appeared to be exceeding prosperous in this little 
tributary kingdom — whose lord was King Bagdemagus 
—as compared with the state of things in my own 
region. They had the ‘* protection’’ system in full 
force here, whereas we were working along down 
toward free-trade, by easy stages, and were now about 
half way. Before long, Dowley and I were doing all 
the talking, the others hungrily listening. Dowley 
warmed to his work, snuffed an advantage in the air, 
and began to put questions which he considered pretty 
awkward ones for me, and they did have something of 
that look: 

**In your country, brother, what is the wage of a 
master bailiff, master hind, carter, shepherd, swine- 
herd ?’’ 

‘* Twenty-five milrays a day; that is to say, a quarter 
of a cent.”’ 

The smith’s face beamed with joy. He said: 

‘* With us they are allowed the double of it! And 
what may a mechanic get—— carpenter, dauber, mason, 
painter, blacksmith, wheelwright, and the like?’’ 

‘** On the average, fifty milrays; half a cent a day.’’ 

**Ho-ho! With us they are allowed a hundred! 
With us any good mechanic is allowed a cent a day! 
I count out the tailor, but not the others— they are 
all allowed a cent a day, and in driving times they get 


296 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


more — yes, up to a hundred and ten and even fifteen 
milrays a day. I’ve paid a hundred and fifteen my- 
self, within the week. ’Rah for protection— to Sheol 
with free-trade !’’ 

And his face shone upon the company like a sun- 
burst. But I didn’t scare at all. I rigged up my 
pile-driver, and allowed myself fifteen minutes to drive 
him into the earth—drive him a@// in—drive him in 
till not even the curve of his skull should show above 
ground. Here is the way I started in on him, I asked: 

** What do you pay a pound for salt?’’ 

‘*A hundred milrays.’’ 

‘*We pay forty. What do you pay for beef and 
mutton —when you buy it?’? That was a neat hit; it 
made the color come. 

‘*It varieth somewhat, but not much; one may say 
75 milrays the pound.’’ 

‘* We pay 33. What do you pay for eggs?’’ 

‘* Fifty milrays the dozen.’’ 

**We pay 20. What do you pay for beer?’’ 

‘* It costeth us 8% milrays the pint.’’ 

‘We get it for 4; 25 bottles for a cent. What do 
you pay for wheat?’’ 

‘** At the rate of 900 milrays the bushel.”’ 

*“'We pay 400. What do you pay for a man’s tow- 
linen suit?’’ 

‘* Thirteen cents.’’ 

““We pay 6. What do you pay for a stuff gown 
for the wife of the laborer or the mechanic?’’ 

“* We pay 8.4.0.”’ 

** Well, observe the difference: you pay eight cents 
and four mills, we pay only four cents.’’ I prepared 
now to sock it to him. I said: ‘‘ Look here, dear 
friend, what's become of your high wages you were 
bragging so about a few minutes ago ?’’—and I looked 
around on the company'’with placid satisfaction, for I 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 297 


had slipped up on him gradually and tied him hand 
and foot, you see, without his ever noticing that he 
was being tied at all. ‘*‘What’s become of those noble 
high wages of yours?—I seem to have knocked the 
stuffing all out of them, it appears to me.’’ 

But if you will believe me, he merely looked sur- 
prised, that is all! he didn’t grasp the situation at all, 
didn’t know he had walked into a trap, didn’t discover 
that he was zz a trap. I could have shot him, from 
sheer vexation. With cloudy eye and a struggling in- 
tellect he fetched this out: 

**Marry, I seem not to understand. It is proved 
that our wages be double thine; how then may it be 
that thou’st knocked therefrom the stuffing?—an I 
miscall not the wonderly word, this being the first time 
under grace and providence of God it hath been 
granted me to hear it.”’ 

Well, I was stunned; partly with this unlooked-for 
stupidity on his part, and partly because his fellows so 
manifestly sided with him and were of his mind —if 
you might call it mind. My position was simple 
enough, plain enough; how could it ever be simplified 
more? However, I must try: 

** Why, look here, brother Dowley, don’t you see? 
Your wages are merely higher than ours in xame, not 
in fact.”’ 

**Hear him! They are the double—ye have con- 
fessed it yourself.’’ 

** Yes-yes, I don’t deny that at all. But that’s got 
nothing to do with it; the amount of the wages in 
mere coins, with meaningless names attached to them 
to know them by, has got nothing to do with it. The 
thing is, how much can you duy with your wages? — 
that’s the idea. While it is true that with you a good 
mechanic is allowed about three dollars and a half a year, 
and with us only about a dollar and seventy-five —’’ 


298 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘* There — ye’re confessing it again, ye’re confess: 
ing it again!’’ 

‘*Confound it, I’ve never denied it, I tell you! 
What I say is this. With us 4a/f a dollar buys more 
than a dollar buys with you—and ~¢herefore it stands 
to reason and the commonest kind of common-sense, 
that our wages are Aigher than yours.’’ 

He looked dazed, and said, despairingly: 

** Verily, I cannot make it out. Ye’ve just sazd ours 
are the higher, and with the same breath ye take it 
back.”’ 

‘*Oh, great Scott, isn’t it possible to get such a 
simple thing through your head? Now look here— 
let me illustrate. We pay four cents for a woman’s 
stuff gown, you pay 8.4.0, which is four mills more 
than double. What do you allow a laboring woman 
who works on a farm?’’ 

‘“ Two mills a day.’’ 

**Very good; we allow but half as much; we pay 
her only a tenth of a cent a day; and —’’ 

** Again ye’re conf —’’ 

‘Wait! Now, you see, the thing is very simple; 
this time you’ll understand it. For instance, it takes 
your woman 42 days to earn her gown, at 2 mills a 
day—7 weeks’ work; but ours earns hers in forty 
days—two days short of 7 weeks. Your woman has 
a gown, and her whole seven weeks’ wages are gone; 
ours has a gown, and two days’ wages left, to buy 
something else with. There—wzow you understand 
tg hes | 
He looked — well, he merely looked dubious, it’s 
the most I can say; so did the others. I waited —to 
let the thing work. Dowley spoke at last—and be- 
trayed the fact that he actually hadn’t gotten away 
from his rooted and grounded superstitions yet. He 
said, with a trifle of hesitancy: 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 299 


** But — but — ye cannot fail to grant that two mills 
a day is better than one.’’ 

Shucks! Well, of course, I hated to giveitup. So 
I chanced another flyer: 

** Let us suppose a case. Suppose one of your jour- 
neymen goes out and buys the following articles: 

** 1 pound of salt; 
I dozen eggs; 
I dozen pints of beer; 
I bushel of wheat; 
I tow-linen suit; 
5 pounds of beef; 
5 pounds of mutton. 

“*The lot will cost him 32 cents. It takes him 32 
working days to earn the money—s5 weeks and 2 
days. Let him come to us and work 32 days at half 
the wages; he can buy all those things for a shade 
under 14% cents; they will cost him a shade under 29 
days’ work, and he will have about half a week’s 
wages over. Carry it through the year; he would 
save nearly a week’s wages every two months, your 
man nothing; thus saving five or six weeks’ wages in 
a year, your man not a cent. Mow I reckon you 
understand that ‘high wages’ and ‘low wages’ are 
phrases that don’t mean anything in the world until 
you find out which of them will day the most!’’ 

It was a crusher. 

But, alas! it didn’t crush. No, I had to give it up. 
What those people valued was high wages, it didn’t 
seem to be a matter of any consequence to them 
whether the high wages would buy anything or not. 
They stood for ‘‘ protection,’’ and swore by it, which 
was reasonable enough, because interested parties had 
gulled them into the notion that it was protection which 
had created their high wages. I proved to them that 


in a quarter of a century their wages had advanced but 
20 


300 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


30 per cent., while the cost of living had gone up 100; 
and that with us, in a shorter time, wages had ad- 
vanced 40 per cent. while the cost of living had gone 
steadily down. But it didn’t do any good. Nothing 
could unseat their strange beliefs. 

Well, I was smarting under a sense of defeat. Un- 
deserved defeat, but what of that? That didn’t soften 
the smart any. And to think of the circumstances! 
the first statesman of the age, the capablest man, the 
best-informed man in the entire world, the loftiest un- 
crowned head that had moved through the clouds of 
any political firmament for centuries, sitting here ap- 
parently defeated in argument by an ignorant country 
blacksmith! And I could see that those others were 
sorry for me! — which made me blush till I could smell 
my whiskers scorching. Put yourself in my place; 
feel as mean as I did, as ashamed as I felt — wouldn’t 
you have struck below the belt to get even? Yes, you 
would; it is simply human nature. Well, that is what 
I did. Iam not trying to justify it; I’m only saying 
that I was mad, and anybody would have done it. 

Well, when I make up my mind to hit a man, I 
don’t plan out a love-tap; no, that isn’t my way; as 
long as I’m going to hit him at all, I’m going to hit 
him a lifter. And I don’t jump at him all of a sudden, 
and risk making a blundering half-way business of it; 
no, I get away off yonder to one side, and work up on 
him gradually, so that he never suspects that I’m going 
to hit him at all; and by and by, all in a flash, he’s 
flat on his back, and he can’t tell for the life of him 
how it all happened. That is the way I went for 
brother Dowley. I started to talking lazy and com- 
fortable, as if I was just talking to pass the time; and 
the oldest man in the world couldn’t have taken the 
bearings of my starting place and guessed where I was 
going to fetch up: 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 301 


“ Boys, there’s a good many curious things about 
law, and custom, and usage, and all that sort of thing, 
when you come to look at it; yes, and about the drift 
and progress of human opinion and movement, too. 
There are written laws—they perish; but there are | 
also unwritten laws — ‘hey are eternal. Take the un- 
written law of wages: it says they’ve got to advance, 
little by little, straight through the centuries. And ° 
notice how it works. We know what wages are now, 
here and there and yonder; we strike an average, and say 
that’s the wages of to-day. We know what the wages 
were a hundred years ago, and what they were two 
hundred years ago; that’s as far back as we can get, 
but it suffices to give us the law of progress, the 
measure and rate of the periodical augmentation ; and 
so, without a document to help us, we can come pretty 
close to determining what the wages were three and 
four and five hundred years ago. Good, so far. Do 
we stop there? No. We stop looking backward; we 
face around and apply the law to the future. My 
friends, I can tell you what people’s wages are going 
to be at any date in the future you want to know, for 
hundreds and hundreds of years.” 

** What, goodman, what!’’ 

*“Yes. In seven hundred years wages will have 
risen to six times what they are now, here in your 
region, and farm hands will be allowed 3 cents a day, 
and mechanics 6.”’ 

“IT would [ might die now and live then!’’ inter- 
rupted Smug, the wheelwright, with a fine avaricious 
glow in his eye. 

**And that isn’t all; they'll get their board besides — 
such as it is: it won’t bloat them. Two hundred and 
‘fifty years later— pay attention now—a mechanic’s 
wages will be-— mind you, this is law, not guesswork; 


a mechanic’s wages will then be ¢wenty cents a day !’’ 
20 


302 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


There was a general gasp of awed astonishment, 
Dickon the mason murmured, with raised eyes and 
hands: | 

** More than three weeks’ pay for one day’s work!’’ 

** Riches! —of a truth, yes, riches!’’ muttered 
Marco, his breath coming quick and short, with ex- 


' citement. 


‘* Wages will keep on rising, little by little, little by 
little, as steadily as a tree grows, and at the end of 
three hundred and forty years more there’ll be at least 
one country where the mechanic’s average wage will be 
two hundred cents a day !’’ 

It knocked them absolutely dumb! Not a man of 
them could get his breath for upwards of two minutes. 
Then the coal-burner said prayerfully: 

‘“ Might I but live to see it!’’ 

‘It is the income of an earl!’’ said Smug. 

‘An earl, say ye?’’ said Dowley; ‘‘ ye could say 
more than that and speak no lie; there’s no earl in the 
realm of Bagdemagus that hath an income like to 
that. Income of an earl—mf! it’s the income of an 
angel !’’ 

‘* Now, then, that is what is going to happen as re- 
gards wages. In that remote day, that man will earn, 
with ove week’s work, that bill of goods which it takes 
you upwards of fifty weeks to earn now. Some other 
pretty surprising things are going to happen, too. 
Brother Dowley, who is it that determines, every 
spring, what the particular wage of each kind of 
mechanic, laborer, and servant shall be for that year?’’ 

** Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town coun- 
cil; but most of all, the magistrate. Ye may say, in 
general terms, it is the magistrate that fixes the wages.’’ 

‘“ Doesn’t ask any of those poor devils to Ae/p him 
ix their wages for them, does he?”’ 

““Hm! That were an idea! The master that’s to 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 303 


pay him the money is the one that’s rightly concerned 
in that matter, ye will notice.’’ 

*“Yes—but I thought the other man might have 
some little trifle at stake in it, too; and even his wife 
and children, poor creatures. The masters are these: 
nobles, rich men, the prosperous generally. These 
few, who do no work, determine what pay the vast 
hive shall have who do work. You see? They’rea 
‘combine ’—a trade union, to coin a new phrase — 
who band themselves together to force their lowly 
brother to take what they choose to give. Thirteen 
hundred years hence — so says the unwritten law — the 
“combine’ will be the other way, and then how these 
fine people’s posterity will fume and fret and grit their 
teeth over the insolent tyranny of trade unions! Yes, 
indeed! the magistrate will tranquilly arrange the 
wages from now clear away down into the nineteenth 
century; and then all of a sudden the wage-earner will 
consider that a couple of thousand years or so is 
enough of this one-sided sort of thing; and he wil 
rise up and take a hand in fixing his wages himself. 
Ah, he will have a long and bitter account of wrong 
and humiliation to settle.’’ 

**Do ye believe —’’ 

‘* That he actually will help to fix his own wages? 
Yes, indeed. And he will be strong and able, then.”’ 

‘* Brave times, brave times, of a truth!’’ sneered 
the prosperous smith. 

‘*Oh,—and there’s another detail. In that day, a 
master may hire a man for only just one day, or one 
week, or one month at a time, if he wants to.”’ 

** What?’’ 

**TIt’s true. Moreover, a magistrate won’t be able 
to force a man to work for a master a whole year ona 
stretch whether the man wants to or not.’’ 

** Will there be zo law or sense in that day?’’ 


304 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


** Both of them, Dowley. In that day a man wil 
be his own property, not the property of magistrate 
and master. And he can leave town whenever he 
wants to, if the wages don’t suit him!—and they 
can’t put him in the pillory for it.’’ 

‘* Perdition catch such an age!’’ shouted Dowley, 
in strong indignation. ‘‘ An age of dogs, an age barren 
of reverence for superiors and respect for authority! 
The pillory —”’ 

‘* Oh, wait, brother; say no good word for that in- 
stitution. J think the pillory ought to be abolished.’”’ 

‘* A most strange idea. Why?’’ 

** Well, I'll tell you why. Is aman ever put in the 
pillory for a capital crime?’’ 

66 No.’’ 

‘*Is it right to condemn a man to a slight punish- 
ment for a small offense and then kill him?’’ 

There was no answer. I had scored my first point! 
For the first time, the smith wasn’t up and ready. 
The company noticed it. Good effect. 

**'‘You don’t answer, brother. You were about to 
glorify the pillory a while ago, and shed some pity on 
a future age that isn’t going to use it. J think the 
pillory ought to be abolished. What usually happens 
when a poor fellow is put in the pillory for some little 
offense that didn’t amount to anything in the world? 
The mob try to have some fun with him, don’t they?’’ 

eS, t 

‘They begin by clodding him; and they laugh 
themselves to pieces to see him try to dodge one clod 
and get hit with another?’’ 

¢é Ves?” 

** Then they throw dead cats at him, don’t they?’’ 

64 Yes.’’ 

** Well, then, suppose he has a few personal enemies 
in that mob— and here and there a man or a woman 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 305 


with a secret grudge against him—and suppose 
especially that he is unpopular in the community, for 
his pride, or his prosperity, or one thing or another — 
stones and bricks take the place of clods and cats 
presently, don’t they?’’ 

** There is no doubt of it.’’ 

““Asarule he is crippled for life, isn’t he? — jaws 
broken, teeth smashed out?—or legs mutilated, gan- 
grened, presently cut off? —or an eye knocked out, 
maybe both eyes?’’ 

“Tt is true, God knoweth it.’’ 

**And if he is unpopular he can depend on dying, 
right there in the stocks, can’t he?’’ 

** He surely can! One may not deny it.”’ 

**T take it none of you are unpopular — by reason 
of pride or insolence, or conspicuous prosperity, or 
any of those things that excite envy and malice among 
the base scum of a village? - You wouldn’t think it 
much of a risk to take a chance in the stocks?’’ 

Dowley winced, visibly. I judged he was hit. But 
he didn’t betray it by any spoken word. As for the 
others, they spoke out plainly, and with strong feeling. 
They said they had seen enough of the stocks to know 
what a man’s chance in them was, and they would 
never consent to enter them if they could compromise 
on a quick death by hanging. 

‘‘Well, to change the subject—for I think I’ve 
established my point that the stocks ought to be abol- 
ished. I think some of our laws are pretty unfair. 
For instance, if I do a thing which ought to deliver 
me to the stocks, and you know I did it and yet keep 
still and don’t report me, you will get the stocks if 
anybody informs on you.’’ 

‘*Ah, but that would serve you but right,’’ said 
Dowley, ‘‘ for you must inform. So saith the law.’’ 

The others coincided. 


306 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘* Well, all right, let it go, since you vote me down. 
But there’s one thing which certainly isn’t fair. The 
magistrate fixes a mechanic’s wage at I cent a day, 
for instance. The law says that if any master shall 
venture, even under utmost press of business, to pay 
anything over that cent a day, even for a single day, 
he shall be both fined and pilloried for it; and who- 
ever knows he did it and doesn’t inform, they also shall 
be fined and pilloried. Now it seems to me unfair, 
Dowley, and a deadly peril to all of us, that because 
you thoughtlessly confessed, a while ago, that within a 
week you have paid a cent and fifteen mil —’’ 

Oh, I tell you it was a smasher! You ought to have 
seen them to go to pieces, the whole gang. I had just 
slipped up on poor smiling and complacent Dowley so 
nice and easy and softly, that he never suspected any- 
thing was going to happen till the blow came crashing 
down and knocked him all to rags. 

A fine effect. In fact, as fine as any I ever pro- 
duced, with so little time to work it up in. 

But I saw in a moment that I had overdone the 
thing a little. I was expecting to scare them, but I 
wasn’t expecting to scare them to death. They were 
mighty near it, though. You see they had been a 
whole lifetime learning to appreciate the pillory; and 
to have that thing staring them in the face, and every 
one of them distinctly at the mercy of me, a stranger, 
if I chose to go and report — well, it was awful, and 
they couldn’t seem to recover from the shock, they 
couldn’t seem to pull themselves together. Pale, 
shaky, dumb, pitiful? Why, they weren’t any better 
than so many dead men. It was very uncomfortable. 
Of course, I thought they would appeal to me to keep 
mum, and then we would shake hands, and take a 
drink all round, and laugh it off, and there an end. 
But no; you see I was an unknown person, among a 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 307 


cruelly oppressed and suspicious people, a people 
always accustomed to having advantage taken of their © 
helplessness, and never expecting just or kind treat- 
ment from any but their own families and very closest 
intimates. Appeal to me to be gentle, to be fair, to 
be generous? Of course, they wanted to, but they 
couldn’t dare, 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


THE YANKEE AND THE KING SOLD AS SLAVES 


ELL, what had I better do? Nothing in a hurry, 
sure. I must get up a diversion; anything to 
employ me while I could think, and while these poor 
fellows could have a chance to come to life again. 
There sat Marco, petrified in the act of trying to get 
the hang of his miller-gun—turned to stone, just in 
the attitude he was in when my pile-driver fell, the toy 
still gripped in his unconscious fingers. So I took it 
from him and proposed to explain its mystery. 
Mystery! a simple little thing like that; and yet it 
was mysterious enough, for that race and that age. 

I never saw such an awkward people, with machin- 
ery; you see, they were totally unused to it. The 
miller-gun was a little double-barreled tube of tough- 
ened glass, with a neat little trick of a spring to it, 
which upon pressure would let a shot escape. But the 
shot wouldn’t hurt anybody, it would only drop into 
your hand. In the gun were two sizes— wee mustard- 
seed shot, and another sort that were several times 
larger. They were money. The mustard-seed shot 
represented milrays, the larger ones mills. So the 
gun was a purse; and very handy, too; you could 
pay out money in the dark with it, with accuracy; and 
you could carry it in your mouth; or in your vest 
pocket, if you had one. I made them of several sizes 

(308 ) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 309 


—one size so large that it would carry the equivalent 
of adollar. Using shot for money was a good thing 
for the government; the metal cost nothing, and the 
money couldn’t be counterfeited, for I was the only 
person in the kingdom who knew how to manage a 
shot tower. ‘‘ Paying the shot’’ soon came to be a 
common phrase. Yes, and I knew it would still be 
passing men’s lips, away down in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, yet none would suspect how and when it origi- 
nated. 

The king joined us, about this time, mightily re- 
freshed by his nap, and feeling good. Anything could 
make me nervous now, I was so uneasy — for our lives 
were in danger; and so it worried me to detect a com- 
placent something in the king’s eye which seemed to 
indicate that he had been loading himself up for a 
performance of some kind or other; confound it, why 
must he go and choose such a time as this? 

I was right. He began, straight off, in the most 
innocently artful, and transparent, and lubberly way, 
to lead up to the subject of agriculture. The cold 
sweat broke out all over me. I wanted ‘to whisper in 
his ear, ‘‘ Man, we are in awful danger! every moment 
is worth a principality till we get back these men’s 
confidence; don’t waste any of this golden time.’’ 
But of course I couldn’t do it. Whisper to him? It 
would look as if we were conspiring. So I had to sit 
there and look calm and pleasant while the king stood 
over that dynamite mine and mooned along about his 
damned onions and things. At first the tumult of my 
own thoughts, summoned by the danger-signal and 
swarming to the rescue from every quarter of my 
skull, kept up such a hurrah and confusion and fifing 
and drumming that I couldn’t take in a word; but 
presently when my mob of gathering plans began to 
crystallize and fall into position and form line of battle, 


310 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


a sort of order and quiet ensued and I caught the boom 
of the king’s batteries, as if out of remote distance: 

‘*_ were not the best way, methinks, albeit it is not 
to be denied that authorities differ as concerning this 
point, some contending that the onion is but an un- 
wholesome berry when stricken early from the tree —”’ 

The audience showed signs of life, and sought each 
other’s eyes in a surprised and troubled way. 

‘*__whileas others do yet maintain, with much show 
of reason, that this is not of necessity the case, instanc- 
ing that plums and other like cereals do be always dug 
in the unripe state —’’ 

The audience exhibited distinct distress; yes, and 
also fear. 

‘‘_- yet are they clearly wholesome, the more espe- 
cially when one doth assuage the asperities of their 
nature by admixture of the tranquilizing juice of the 
wayward cabbage —’’ 

The wild light of terror began to glow in these men’s 
eyes, and one of them muttered, ‘‘ These be errors, 
every one— God hath surely smitten the mind of this 
farmer.’’ I was in miserable apprehension; I sat upon 
thorns. 

**‘—-and further instancing the known truth that in 
the case of animals, the young, which may be called 
the green fruit of the creature, is the better, all con- 
fessing that when a goat is ripe, his fur doth heat and 
sore engame his flesh, the which defect, taken in con- 
nection with his several rancid habits, and fulsome 
appetites, and godless attitudes of mind, and bilious 
quality of morals —’’ 

They rose and went for him! With a fierce shout, 
** The one would betray us, the other is mad! Kill 
them! Kill them!’’ they flung themselves upon us. 
What joy flamed up in the king’s eye! He might be 
lame in agriculture, but this kind of thing was just in 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 311 


his line. He had been fasting long, he was hungry 
fora fight. He hit the blacksmith a crack under the 
jaw that lifted him clear off his feet and stretched him 
flat on his back. ‘‘St. George for Britain!’’ and he 
downed the wheelwright. The mason was big, but I 
laid him out like nothing. The three gathered them- 
selves up and came again; went down again; came 
again; and kept on repeating this, with native British 
pluck, until they were battered to jelly, reeling with 
exhaustion, and so blind that they couldn’t tell us 
from each other; and yet they kept right on, hammer- 
ing away with what might was left in them. Ham- 
mering each other—for we stepped aside and looked 
on while they rolled, and struggled, and gouged, and 
pounded, and bit, with the strict and wordless attention 
to business of so many bulldogs. We looked on with- 
out apprehension, for they were fast getting past 
ability to go for help against us, and the arena was 
far enough from the public road to be safe from 
intrusion. 

Well, while they were gradually playing out, it sud- 
denly occurred to me to wonder what had become of 
Marco. I looked around; he was nowhere to be seen. 
Oh, but this was ominous! I pulled the king’s sleeve, 
and we glided away and rushed for the hut. No Marco 
there, no Phyllis there! They had gone to the road 
for help, sure. I told the king to give his heels wings, 
and I would explain later. We made good time across 
the open ground, and as we darted into the shelter of 
the wood I glanced back and saw a mob of excited 
peasants swarm into view, with Marco and his wife at 
their head. They were making a world of noise, but 
that couldn’t hurt anybody; the wood was dense, and 
as soon as we were well into its depths we would take 
to a tree and let them whistle. Ah, but then came 
another sound-—dogs! Yes, that was quite another 


312 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


matter. It magnified our contract—we must find 
running water. 

We tore along at a good gait, and soon ) fale the 
sounds far behind and modified to a murmur. We 
struck a stream and darted into it. We waded swiftly 
down it, in the dim forest light, for as much as three 
hundred yards, and then came across an oak with a 
great bough sticking out over the water. We climbed 
up on this bough, and began to work our way along it 
to the body of the tree; now we began to hear those 
sounds more plainly; so the mob had struck our trail. 
For a while the sounds approached pretty fast. And 
then for another while they didn’t. No doubt the 
dogs had found the place where we had entered the 
stream, and were now waltzing up and down the shores 
trying to pick up the trail again. 

When we were snugly lodged in the tree and cur- 
tained with foliage, the king was satisfied, but I was 
doubtful. I believed we could crawl along a branch 
and get into the next tree, and I judged it worth while 
to try. We tried it, and made a success of it, though 
the king slipped, at the junction, and came near failing 
to connect. We got comfortable lodgment and satis- 
factory concealment among the foliage, and then we 
had nothing to do but listen to the hunt. 

Presently we heard it coming —~and coming on the 
jump, too; yes, and down both sides of the stream. 
Louder — louder — next minute it swelled swiftly up 
into a roar of shoutings, barkings, tramplings, and 
swept by like a cyclone. 

**T was afraid that the overhanging branch would 
suggest something to them,’’ said I, ‘‘ but I don’t 
mind the disappointment. Come, my liege, it were 
well that we make good use of our time. We've 
flanked them. Dark is coming on, presently. If we 
can cross the stream and get a good start, and borrow 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 313 


a couple of horses from somebody’s pasture to use for 
a few hours, we shall be safe enough.’’ 

We started down, and got nearly to the lowest limb, 
when we seemed to hear the hunt returning. We 
stopped to listen. 

*“Yes,’’ said I, ‘‘they’re baffled, they’ve given it 
up, they’re on their way home. We will climb back 
to our roost again, and let them go by.”’ 

So we climbed back. The king listened a moment 
and said: 

** They still search —I wit the sign. We did best to 
abide.’’ 

He was right. He knew more about hunting than I 
did. The noise approached steadily, but not with a 
rush. The king said: 

‘** They reason that we were advantaged by no par- 
lous start of them, and being on foot are as yet no 
mighty way from where we took the water.”’ 

** Yes, sire, that is about it, I am afraid, though I 
was hoping better things.”’ 

The noise drew nearer and nearer, and soon the van 
was drifting under us, on both sides of the water. A 
voice called a halt from the other bank, and said:’ 

**An they were so minded, they could get to yon 
tree by this branch that overhangs, and yet not touch 
ground. Ye will do well to send a man up it.” 

** Marry, that we will do!’’ 

I was obliged to admire my cuteness in foreseeing 
this very thing and swapping trees to beat it. But, 
don’t you know, there are some things that can beat 
smartness and foresight? MAwkwardness and stupidity 
can. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need 
to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, 
the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant 
antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand _ be- 
fore; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so 


414 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing 
he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert 
out and ends him on the spot. Well, how could I, 
with all my gifts, make any valuable preparation against 
a near-sighted, cross-eyed, pudding-headed clown who 
would aim himself at the wrong tree and hit the right 
one? And that is what he did. He went for the 
wrong tree, which was, of course, the right one by 
mistake, and up he started. 

Matters were serious now. We remained still, and 
awaited developments. The peasant toiled his difficult 
way up. The king raised himself up and stood; he 
made a leg ready, and when the comer’s head arrived 
in reach of it there was a dull thud, and down went 
the man floundering to the ground. There was a wild 
outbreak of anger below, and the mob swarmed in 
from all around, and there we were treed, and prison- 
ers. Another man started up; the bridging bough 
was detected, and a volunteer started up the tree that 
furnished the bridge. The king ordered me to play 
Horatius and keep the bridge. For a while the enemy 
came thick and fast; but no matter, the head man of 
each procession always got a buffet that dislodged him 
as soon as he came in reach. The king’s spirits rose, 
his joy was limitless. He said that if nothing occurred 
to mar the prospect we should have a beautiful night, 
for on this line of tactics we could hold the tree against 
the whole country-side. 

However, the mob soon came to that conclusion — 
themselves; wherefore they called off the assault and 
began to debate other plans. They had no weapons, 
but there were plenty of stones, and stones might 
answer. We had no objections. A stone might pos- 
sibly penetrate to us once in a while, but it wasn’t 
very likely; we were well protected by boughs and 
foliage, and were not visible from any good aiming- 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 315 


point. If they would but waste half an hour in stone- 
throwing, the dark would come to our help. We were 
feeling very well satisfied. We could smile; almost 
laugh. 

But we didn’t; which was just as well, for we should 
have been interrupted. Before the stones had been 
raging through the leaves and bouncing from the 
boughs fifteen minutes, we began to notice a smell. 
A couple of sniffs of it was enough of an explanation: 
it was smoke! Our game was up at last. We recog- 
nized that. When smoke invites you, you have to 
come. They raised their pile of dry brush and damp 
weeds higher and higher, and when they saw the thick 
cloud begin to roll up and smother the tree, they broke 
out in a storm of joy-clamors. I got enough breath to 
say: 

** Proceed, my liege; after you is manners.’’ 

The king gasped: 

** Follow me down, and then back thyself against 
one side of the trunk, and leave me the other. Then 
will we fight. Let each pile his dead according to his 
own fashion and taste.’’ 

Then he descended, barking and coughing, and I 
followed. I struck the ground an instant after him; 
we sprang to our appointed places, and began to give 
and take with all our might. The powwow and racket 
were prodigious; it was a tempest of riot and con- 
fusion and thick-falling blows. Suddenly some horse- 
men tore into the midst of the crowd, and a voice 
shouted: 

‘* Hold — or ye are dead men!”’ 

How good it sounded! The owner of the voice 
bore all the marks of a gentleman: picturesque and 
costly raiment, the aspect of command, a hard coun- 
tenance, with complexion and features marred by dis- 
sipation. The mob fell humbly back, like so many 


316 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


spaniels. The gentleman inspected us critically, then 
said sharply to the peasants: 

‘* What are ye doing to these people?’’ 

‘* They be madmen, worshipful sir, that have come 
wandering we know not whence, and —’’ 

‘*Ye know not whence? Do ye pretend ye know 
them not?’’ 

‘* Most honored sir, we speak but the truth. They 
are strangers and unknown to any in this region; and 
they be the most violent and bloodthirsty madmen that 
ever —’’ 

**Peace! Ye know not what ye say. They are not 
mad. Who are ye? And whence are ye? Explain.’’ 

“We are but peaceful strangers, sir,’’ I said, ‘* and 
traveling upon our own concerns. We are from a far 
country, and unacquainted here. We have purposed 
no harm} and yet but for your brave interference and 
protection these people would have killed us. As you 
have divined, sir, we are not mad; neither are we 
violent or bloodthirsty.’”’ 

The gentleman turned to his retinue and said calmly: 

** Lash me these animals to their kennels !’’ 

The mob vanished in an instant; and after them 
plunged the horsemen, laying about them with their 
whips and pitilessly riding down such as were witless 
enough to keep the road instead of taking to the bush. 
The shrieks and supplications presently died away in 
the distance, and soon the horsemen began to straggle 
back. Meantime the gentleman had been questioning 
us more closely, but had dug no particulars out of us. 
We were lavish of recognition of the service he was 
doing us, but we revealed nothing more than that we 
were friendless strangers from a far country. When 
the escort were all returned, the gentleman said to one 
of his servants: 

‘* Bring the led-horses and mount these people.”’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 317 


** Yes, my lord.”’ 

We were placed toward the rear, among the servants. 
We traveled pretty fast, and finally drew rein some 
time after dark at a roadside inn some ten or twelve 
miles from the scene of our troubles. My lord went 
immediately to his room, after ordering his supper, 
and we saw no more of him. At dawn in the morning 
we breakfasted and made ready to start. 

My lord’s chief attendant sauntered forward at that 
moment with indolent grace, and said: 7 

**Ye have said ye should continue upon this road, 
which is our direction likewise; wherefore my lord, 
the earl Grip, hath given commandment that ye retain 
the horses and ride, and that certain of us ride with 
ye a twenty mile to a fair town that hight Cambenet, 
whenso ye shall be out of peril.’’ 

We could do nothing less than express our thanks 
and accept the offer. We jogged along, six in the 
party, at a moderate and comfortable gait, and in con- 
versation learned that my lord Grip was a very great 
personage in his own region, which lay a day’s journey 
beyond Cambenet. We loitered to such a degree that 
it was near the middle of the forenoon when we entered 
the market square of the town. We dismounted, and 
Jeft our thanks once more for my lord, and then ap- 
proached a crowd assembled in the center of the 
square, to see what might be the object of interest. 
It was the remnant of that old peregrinating band of 
slaves! So they had been dragging their chains about, 
all this weary time. That poor husband was gone, and 
also many others; and some few purchases had been 
added to the gang. The king was not interested, and 
wanted to move along, but I was absorbed, and full of 
pity. I could not take my eyes away from these worn 
and wasted wrecks of humanity. There they sat, 
grouped upon the ground, silent, uncomplaining, with 

ar 


$18 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


bowed heads, a pathetic sight. And by hideous con- 
trast, a redundant orator was making a speech to 
another gathering not thirty steps away, in fulsome 
laudation of ‘‘ our glorious British liberties !’’ 

I was boiling. I had forgotten I was a plebeian, I 
was remembering I was a man. Cost what it might, 1 
would mount that rostrum and — 

Click! the king and I were handcuffed together! 
Our companions, those servants, had done it; my lord 
Grip stood looking on. The king burst out in a fury, 
and said: 

** What meaneth this ill-mannered jest?’’ 

My lord merely said to his head miscreant, coolly: 

‘* Put up the slaves and sell them !’’ 

Slaves / The word had a new sound—and how 
unspeakably awful! The king lifted his manacles and 
brought them down with a deadly force; but my lord 
was out of the way when they arrived. A dozen of 
the rascal’s servants sprang forward, and in a moment 
we were helpless, with our hands bound behind us. 
We so loudly and so earnestly proclaimed ourselves 
freemen, that we got the interested attention of that 
liberty-mouthing orator and his patriotic crowd, and 
they gathered about us and assumed a very determined 
attitude. The orator said: 

*““Tf, indeed, ye are freemen, ye have nought to 
fear—the God-given liberties of Britain are about ye 
for your shield and shelter! (Applause.) Ye shall 
soon see. Bring forth your proofs,’’ 

** What proofs ?’’ 

** Proof that ye are freemen.”’ 

Ah—I remembered! I came to myself; I said 
nothing. But the king stormed out: 

‘*Thou’rt insane, man. It were better, and more 
in reason, that this thief and scoundrel here prove that 
we are wot freemen,”’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 319 


You see, he knew his own laws just as other people 
so often know the laws; by words, not by effects. 
They take a meaning, and get to be very vivid, when 
you come to apply them to yourself. 

All hands shook their heads and looked disap- 
pointed; some turned away, no longer interested. The 
orator said—and this time in the tones of business, 
not of sentiment: 

‘*An ye do not know your country’s laws, it were 
time ye learned them. Ye are strangers to us; ye will 
not deny that. Ye may be freemen, we do not deny 
that; but also ye may be slaves. The law is clear: it 
doth not require the claimant to prove ye are slaves, it 
requireth you to prove ye are wot.’’ 

I said: 

** Dear sir, give us only time to send to Astolat; or 
give us only time to send to the Valley of Holiness —’’ 

** Peace, good man, these are extraordinary requests, 
and you may not hope to have them granted. It would 
cost much time, and would unwarrantably inconveni- 
ence your master —”’ 

** Master, idiot!’’ stormed the king. ‘‘I have no 
master, I myself am the m—’’ 

** Silence, for God’s sake!’’ 

I got the words out in time to stop the king. We 
were in trouble enough already; it could not help us 
any to give these people the notion that we were 
lunatics. 

There is no use in stringing out the details. The 
earl put us up and sold us at auction. This same in- 
fernal law had existed in our own South in my own 
time, more than thirteen hundred years later, and 
under it hundreds of freemen who could not prove that 
they were freemen had been sold into lifelong slavery 
without the circumstance making any particular im- 
pression upon me; but the minute law and the auction 


320 A Yankee tn King Arthur’s Court 


block came into my personal experience, a thing 
which had been merely improper before became sud- 
denly hellish. Well, that’s the way we are made. 

Yes, we were sold at auction, like swine. Ina big 
town and an active market we should have brought a 
good price; but this place was utterly stagnant and so 
we sold at a figure which makes me ashamed, every 
time I think of it. The King of England brought 
seven dollars, and his prime minister nine; whereas 
the king was easily worth twelve dollars and I as easily 
worth fifteen, But that is the way things always go; 
if you force a sale on a dull market, I don’t care what 
the property is, you are going to make a poor business 
of it, and you can make up your mind to it. If the 
earl had had wit enough to —: 

However, there is no occasion for my working my 
sympathies up on his account. Let him go, for the 
present; I took his number, so to speak. 

The slave-dealer bought us both, and hitched us 
onto that long chain of his, and we constituted the rear 
of his procession. We took up our line of march and 
passed out of Cambenet at noon; and it seemed to me 
unaccountably strange and odd that the King of Eng- 
fand and his chief minister, marching manacled and 
lettered and yoked, in a slave convoy, could move by 
all manner of idle men and. women, and under windows 
where sat the sweet and the lovely, and yet never 
attract a curious eye, never provoke a single remark. 
Dear, dear, it only shows that there is nothing diviner 
about a king than there is about a tramp, after all. 
He is just a cheap and hollow artificiality when you 
don’t know he isa king. But reveal his quality, and 
dear me it takes your very breath away to look at him. 
I reckon we are all fools. Born so, no doubt. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


A PITIFUL INCIDENT 


T’S a world of surprises. The king brooded; this 

was natural. What would he brood about, should 
you say? Why, about the prodigious nature of his 
fall, of course — from the loftiest place in the world to 
the lowest; from the most illustrious station in the 
world to the obscurest; from the grandest vocation 
among men to the basest. No, I take my oath that 
the thing that graveled him most, to start with, was 
not this, but the price he had fetched! He couldn’t 
seem to get over that seven dollars. Well, it stunned 
me so, when I first found it out, that I couldn’t believe 
it; it didn’t seem natural. But as soon as my mental 
sight cleared and I gota right focus on it, I saw I was 
mistaken; it was natural. For this reason: a king is 
a mere artificiality, and so a king’s feelings, like the 
impulses of an automatic doll, are mere artificialities ; 
but as a man, he is a reality, and his feelings, as a 
man, are real, not phantoms. It shames the average 
man to be valued below his own estimate of his worth, 
and the king certainly wasn’t anything more than an 
average man, if he was up that high. 

Confound him, he wearied me with arguments to 
show that in anything like a fair market he would have 
fetched twenty-five dollars, sure—a thing which was 
plainly nonsense, and full of the baldest conceit; ] 


21 (321) 


$22 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


wasn’t worth it myself. But it was tender ground fot 
me to argue on, In fact, I had to simply shirk argu- 
ment and do the diplomatic instead. I had to throw 
conscience aside, and brazenly concede that he ought 
to have brought twenty-five dollars; whereas I was 
quite well aware that in all the ages, the world had 
never seen a king that was worth half the money, and 
during the next thirteen centuries wouldn’t see one 
that was worth the fourth of it. Yes, he tired me. If 
he began to talk about the crops; or about the recent 
weather; or about the condition of politics; or about 
dogs, or cats, or morals, or theology—no matter 
what—TI sighed, for I knew what was coming; he 
was going to get out of it a palliation of that tiresome 
seven-dollar sale. Wherever we halted where there 
was a crowd, he would give me a look which said 
plainly: ‘‘if that thing could be tried over again now, 
with this kind of folk, you would see a different re- 
sult.’’ Well, when he was first sold, it secretly tickled 
me to see him go for seven dollars; but before he was 
done with his sweating and worrying I wished he had 
fetched a hundred. The thing never got a chance to 
die, for every day, at one place or another, possible 
purchasers looked us over, and, as often as any other 
way, their comment on the king was something like 
this: 

‘* Here’s a two-dollar-and-a-half chump with a thirty- 
dollar style. Pity but style was marketable.’’ 

- At last this sort of remark produced an evil result. 
Our owner was a practical person and he perceived 
that this defect must be mended if he hoped to find a 
purchaser for the king. So he went to work to take 
the style out of his sacred majesty. I could have 
given the man some valuable advice, but I didn’t; you 
mustn’t volunteer advice to a slave-driver unless you 
want te damage the cause you are arguing for. I had 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 323 


found it a sufficiently difficult job to reduce the king’s 
style to a peasant’s style, even when he was a willing 
and anxious pupil; now then, to undertake to reduce 
the king’s style to a slave’s style—and by force—go 
to! it was a stately contract. Never mind the details 
— it will save me trouble to let you imagine them. I 
will only remark that at the end of a week there was 
plenty of evidence that lash and club and fist had done 
their work well; the king’s body was a sight to see — 
and to weep over; but his spirit?-—why, it wasn’t 
even phased. Even that dull clod of a slave-driver 
was able to see that there can be such a thing asa 
slave who will remain a man till he dies; whose bones 
you can break, but whose manhood you can’t. This 
man found that from his first effort down to his latest, 
he couldn’t ever come within reach of the king, but the 
king was ready to plunge for him, and did it. So he 
gave up at last, and left the king in possession of his 
style unimpaired. The fact is, the king was a good 
deal more than a king, he was a man; and when a 
man is a man, you can’t knock it out of him. 

We had a rough time for a month, tramping to and 
fro in the earth, and suffering. And what Englishman 
was the most interested in the slavery question by that 
time? His grace the king! Yes; from being the 
most indifferent, he was become the most interested. 
He was become the bitterest hater of the institution I 
had ever heard talk. And so I ventured to ask once 
more a question which I had asked years before and 
had gotten such a sharp answer that I had not thought 
it prudent to meddle in the matter further. Would he 
abolish slavery? 

His answer was as sharp as before, but it was music 
this time; I shouldn’t ever wish to hear pleasanter, 
though the profanity was not good, being awkwardiy 
put together, and with the crash-word almost in the 

U 


324 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


middle instead of at the end, where, of course, it ought 
to have been. 

I was ready and willing to get free now; I hadn’t 
wanted to get free any sooner. No, I cannot quite 
say that. I had wanted to, but I had not been willing 
to take desperate chances, and had always dissuaded 
the king from them. But now—ah, it was a new 
atmosphere! Liberty would be worth any cost that 
might be put upon it now. I set about a plan, and 
was straightway charmed with it. It would require 
time, yes, and patience, too, a great deal of both. 
One could invent quicker ways, and fully as sure ones; 
but none that would be as picturesque as this; none 
that could be made so dramatic. And so I was not 
going to give this one up. It might delay us months, 
but no matter, I would carry it out or break some- 
thing. 

Now and then we had an adventure. One night we 
were overtaken by a snow-storm while still a mile from 
the village we were making for. Almost instantly we 
were shut up as in a fog, the driving snow was so 
thick. You couldn’t see a thing, and we were soon 
lost. The slave-driver lashed us desperately, for he 
saw ruin before him, but his lashings only made mat- 
ters worse, for they drove us further from the road and 
from likelihood of succor. So we had to stop at last 
and slump down in the snow where we were. The 
storm continued until toward midnight, then ceased. 
By this time two of our feebler men and three of our 
women were dead, and others past moving and threat- 
ened with death. Our master was nearly beside him- 
self. He stirred up the living, and made us stand, 
jump, slap ourselves, to restore our circulation, and he 
helped as well as he could with his whip. 

Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, 
and soon a woman came running and crying; and see- 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 325 


ing our group, she flung herself into our midst and 
begged for protection. A mob of people came tearing 
after her, some with torches, and they said she was a 
witch who had caused several cows to die by a strange 
disease, and practiced her arts by help of a devil in 
the form of a black cat. This poor woman had been 
stoned until she hardly looked human, she was so 
battered and bloody. The mob wanted to burn her. 

Well, now, what do you suppose our master did? 
When we closed around this poor creature to shelter 
her, he saw his chance. He said, burn her here, or 
they shouldn’t have her at all. Imagine that! They 
were willing. They fastened her to a post; they 
brought wood and piled it about her; they applied- 
the torch while she shrieked and pleaded and strained 
her two young daughters to her breast; and our brute, 
with a heart solely for business, lashed us into position 
about the stake and warmed us into life and commer- 
cial value by the same fire which took away the inno- 
cent life of that poor harmless mother. That was the 
sort of master we had. I took zs number. That 
snow-storm cost him nine of his flock; and he was 
more brutal to us than ever, after that, for many days 
together, he was so enraged over his loss. 

We had adventures all along. One day we ran into 
a procession. And sucha procession! All the riffraff 
of the kingdom seemed to be comprehended in it; and 
all drunk at that. In the van was a cart with a coffin 
in it, and on the coffin sat a comely young girl of 
about eighteen suckling a baby, which she squeezed ta 
her breast in a passion of love every little while, and 
every little while wiped from its face the tears which 
her eyes rained down upon it; and always the foolish 
little thing smiled up at her, happy and content, knead- 
ing her breast with its dimpled fat hand, which she 
patted and fondled right over her breaking heart. 


426 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Men and women, boys and girls, trotted along beside 
or after the cart, hooting, shouting profane and ribald 
remarks, singing snatches of foul song, skipping, 
dancing —a very holiday of hellions, a sickening sight. 
We had struck a suburb of London, outside the walls, 
and this was a sample of one sort of London society. 
Our master secured a good place for us near the 
gallows. A priest was in attendance, and he helped 
the girl climb up, and said comforting words to her, 
and made the under-sheriff provide a stool for her. 
Then he stood there by her on the gallows, and for a 
moment looked down upon the mass of upturned faces 
at his feet, then out over the solid pavement of heads 
that stretched away on every side occupying the 
vacancies far and near, and then began to tell the 
story of the case. And there was pity in his voice — 
how seldom a sound that was in that ignorant and 
savage land! I remember every detail of what he said, 
except the words he said it in; and so I change it into 
my own words: 

‘* Law is intended to mete out justice. Sometimes 
it fails, This cannot be helped. We can only grieve, 
and be resigned, and pray for the soul of him who 
falls unfairly by the arm of the law, and that his fel- 
lows may be few. A law sends this poor young thing 
to death — and it is right. But another law had placed 
her where she must commit her crime or starve with 
her child — and before God that law is responsible for 
both her crime and her ignominious death! 

‘“A little while ago this young thing, this child of 
eighteen years, was as happy a wife and mother as 
any in England; and her lips were blithe with song, 
which is the native speech of glad and innocent hearts. 
Her young husband was as happy as she; for he was 
doing his whole duty, he worked early and late at his 
handicraft, his bread was honest bread well and fairly 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 327 


earned, he was prospering, he was furnishing shelter 
and sustenance to his family, he was adding his mite 
to the wealth of the nation. By consent of a treacher- 
ous law, instant destruction fell upon this holy home 
and swept it away! That young husband was waylaid 
and impressed, and sent to sea. The wife knew 
nothing of it. She sought him everywhere, she moved 
the hardest hearts with the supplications of her tears, 
the broken eloquence of her despair. Weeks dragged 
by, she watching, waiting, hoping, her mind going 
slowly to wreck under the burden of her misery. 
Little by little all her small possessions went for food. 
When she could no longer pay her rent, they turned 
her out of doors. She begged, while she had strength; 
when she was starving at last, and her milk failing, she 
stole a piece of linen cloth of the value of a fourth part 
of a cent, thinking to sell itand save her child. But 
she was seen by the owner of the cloth. She was put 
in jail and brought to trial. The man testified to the 
facts. A plea was made for her, and her sorrowful 
story was told in her behalf. She spoke, too, by per- 
mission, and said she did steal the cloth, but that her 
mind was so disordered of late by trouble that when 
she was overborne with hunger all acts, criminal or 
other, swam meaningless through her brain and she 
knew nothing rightly, except that she was so hungry! 
For a moment all were touched, and there was disposi- 
tion to deal mercifully with her, seeing that she was so 
young and friendless, and her case so piteous, and the 
law that robbed her of her support to blame as being 
the first and only cause of her transgression; but the 
prosecuting officer replied that whereas these things 
were all true, and most pitiful as well, still there was 
much small theft in these days, and mistimed mercy 
here would be a danger to property — oh, my God, is 
there no property in ruined homes, and orphaned 


328 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


babes, and broken hearts that British law holds 
precious!— and so he must require sentence. 

‘When the judge put on his black cap, the owner 
of the stolen linen rose trembling up, his lip quivering, 
his face as gray as ashes; and when the awful words 
came, he cried out, ‘Oh, poor child, poor child, I did 
not know it was death!’ and fell as a tree falls. When 
they lifted him up his reason was gone; before the 
sun was set, he had taken his own life. A kindly 
man; a man whose heart was right, at bottom; add 
his murder to this that is to be now done here; and 
charge them both where they belong—to the rulers 
and the bitter laws of Britain. The time is come, my 
child; let me pray over thee—not /for thee, dear 
abused poor heart and innocent, but for them that be 
guilty of thy ruin and death, who need it more.’’ 

After his prayer they put the noose around the 
young girl’s neck, and they had great trouble to adjust 
the knot under her ear, because she was devouring the 
baby all the time, wildly kissing it, and snatching it to . 
her face and her breast, and drenching it with tears, 
and half moaning, half shrieking all the while, and the 
baby crowing, and laughing, and kicking its feet with 
delight over what it took for romp and play. Even 
the hangman couldn’t stand it, but turned away. 
When all was ready the priest gently pulled and tugged 
and forced the child out of the mother’s arms, and 
stepped quickly out of her reach; but she clasped her 
hands, and made a wild spring toward him, with a 
shriek; but the rope —and the under-sheriff— held 
her short. Then she went on her knees and stretched 
out her hands and cried: 

““One more kiss—oh, my God, one more, one 
more,— it is the dying that begs it!’’ 

She got it; she almost smothered the little thing. 
And when they got it away again, she cried out: 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 329 


** Oh, my child, my darling, it will die! It has no 
home, it has no father, no friend, no mother —”’ 

‘It has them all!’’ said that good priest. ‘* All 
these will I be to it till I die.’ 

You should have seen her face then! Gratitude? 
Lord, what do you want with words to express that? 
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself. 
She gave that look, and carried it away to the treasury 
of heaven, where all things that are divine belong. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DARK 


ONDON —to a slave —was a sufficiently interest- 
ing place. It was merely a great big village; 
and mainly mud and thatch. The streets were muddy, 
crooked, unpaved. The populace was an ever flocking 
and drifting swarm of rags, and splendors, of nodding 
plumes and shining armor. The king had a palace 
there; he saw the outside of it. It made him sigh; 
yes, and swear a little, in a poor juvenile sixth century 
way. We saw knights and grandees whom we knew, 
but they didn’t know us in our rags and dirt and raw 
welts and bruises, and wouldn’t have recognized us if 
we had hailed them, nor stopped to answer, either, it 
being unlawful to speak with slaves on a chain. Sandy 
passed within ten yards of me on a mule— hunting 
for me, I imagined. But the thing which clean broke 
my heart was something which happened in front of 
our old barrack in a square, while we were enduring 
the spectacle of a man being boiled to death in oil for 
counterfeiting pennies. It was the sight of a newsboy 
—and I couldn’t get at him! Still, I had one com- 
fort; here was proof that Clarence was still alive and 
banging away. I meant to be with him before long; 
the thought was full of cheer. 
I had one little glimpse of another thing, one day, 
which gave me a great uplift. It was a wire stretching 


(330) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 334 


from housetop to housetop. Telegraph or telephone, 
sure. I did very much wish I had a little piece of it. 
It was just what I needed, in order to carry out my 
project of escape. My idea was to get loose some 
night, along with the king, then gag and bind our 
master, change clothes with him, batter him into the 
aspect of a stranger, hitch him to the slave-chain, 
assume possession of the property, march to Camelot, 
and — 

But you get my idea; you see what a stunning 
dramatic surprise I would wind up with at the palace. 
It was all feasible, if I could only get hold of a slender 
piece of iron which I could shape into a lock-pick. I 
could then undo the lumbering padlocks with which 
our chains were fastened, whenever I might choose. 
But I never had any luck; no such thing ever hap- 
pened to fallin my way. However, my chance came 
at last. A gentleman who had come twice before to 
dicker for me, without result, or indeed any approach 
to a result, came again. I was far from expecting 
ever to belong to him, for the price asked for me from 
the time I was first enslaved was exorbitant, and always 
provoked either anger or derision, yet my master stuck 
stubbornly to it—-twenty-two dollars. He wouldn’t 
bate a cent. The king was greatly admired, because 
of his grand physique, but his kingly style was against 
him, and he wasn’t salable; nobody wanted that kind 
of a slave. I considered myself safe from parting 
from him because of my extravagant price. No, I 
was not expecting to ever belong to this gentleman 
whom I have spoken of, but he had something which 
I expected would belong to me eventually, if he would 
but visit us often enough. It was a steel thing witha 
long pin to it, with which his long cloth outside gar- 
ment was fastened together in front. There were 
three of them. He had disappointed me twice, be- 


$32 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


cause he did not come quite close enough to me to 
make my project entirely safe; but this time I suc- 
ceeded; I captured the lower clasp of the three, and 
when he missed it he thought he had lost it on the 
way. 

I had a chance to be glad about a minute, then 
straightway a chance to be sad again. For when the 
purchase was about to fail, as usual, the master sud- 
denly spoke up and said what would be worded thus— 
in modern English: 

“*T ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m tired supporting 
these two for no good. Give me twenty-two dollars. 
for this one, and I’ll throw the other one in.’’ 

The king couldn’t get his breath, he was in such a 
fury. He began to choke and gag, and meantime the 
master and the gentleman moved away discussing, 

‘* An ye will keep the offer open —’’ 

**’ Tis open till the morrow at this hour.’’ 

‘*Then I will answer you at that time,’’ said the 
gentleman, and disappeared, the master following him. 

I had a time of it to cool the king down, but I 
managed it. I whispered in his ear, to this effect: 

‘“ Your grace w7z// go for nothing, but after another 
fashion. And so shall I. To-night we shall both be 
free.’’ 

‘““Ah! How is that?’’ 

*“ With this thing which I have stolen, I will unlock 
these locks and cast off these chains to-night. When 
he comes about nine-thirty to inspect us for the night, 
we will seize him, gag him, batter him, and early in 
the morning we will march out of this town, proprietors 
of this caravan of slaves.’’ 

That was as far as I went, but the king was charmed 
and satisfied. That evening we waited patiently for 
our fellow-slaves to get to sleep and signify it by the 
usual sign, for you must not take many chances ox 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 333 


those poor fellows if you can avoid it. It is best to 
keep your own secrets. No doubt they fidgeted only 
about as usual, but it didn’t seem so to me. It seemed 
ta me that they were going to be forever getting down 
to their regular snoring. As the time dragged on I 
got nervously afraid we shouldn’t have enough of it 
left for our needs; so I made several premature 
attempts, and merely delayed things by it; for I 
couldn’t seem to touch a padlock, there in the dark, 
without starting a rattle out of it which interrupted 
somebody’s sleep and made him turn over and wake 
some more of the gang. : 

But finally I did get my last iron off, and was a free 
man once more. I took a good breath of relief, and 
reached for the king’s irons. Too late! in comes the 
master, with a light in one hand and his heavy walking- 
staff in the other. I snuggled close among the wallow 
of snorers, to conceal as nearly as possible that I was 
naked of irons; and I kept a sharp lookout and pre- 
pared to spring for my man the moment he should 
bend over me. 

But he didn’t approach. He stopped, gazed ab- 
sently toward our dusky mass a minute, evidently 
thinking about something else; then set down his 
light, moved musingly toward the door, and before a 
body could imagine what he was going to do, he was 
out of the door and had closed it behind him. 

**Quick!’’ said the king. ‘‘ Fetch him back!”’ 

Of course, it was the thing to do, and I was up and 
out ina moment. But, dear me, there were no lamps 
in those days, and it was a dark night. But I glimpsed 
a dim figure a few steps away. I darted for it, threw 
myself upon it, and then there was a state of things 
and lively! We fought and scuffled and struggled, 
and drew acrowd in notime. They took an immense 


interest in the fight and encouraged us all they could, 
22 


$34 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


and, in fact, couldn’t have been pleasanter or more 
cordial if it had been their own fight. Then a tremen- 
dous row broke out behind us, and as much as half of 
our audience left us, with a rush, to invest some sym- 
pathy in that. Lanterns began to swing in all direc- 
tions; it was the watch gathering from far and near. 
Presently a halberd fell across my back, as a reminder, 
and I knew what it meant. I was in custody. So 
was my adversary. We were marched off toward 
prison, one on each side of the watchman. Here was 
disaster, here was a fine scheme gone to sudden de- 
struction! I tried to imagine what would happen 
when the master should discover that it was I who 
had been fighting him; and what would happen if they 
jailed us together in the general apartment for brawlers 
and petty law-breakers, as was the custom; and what 
might — 

Just then my antagonist turned his face around in 
my direction, the freckled light from the watchman’s 
tin lantern fell on it, and, by George, he was the wrong 
man ! 


CHAPTER XXXVIL. 


AN AWFUL PREDICAMENT 


LEEP? It was impossible. It would naturally 
have been impossible in that noisome cavern of 
a jail, with its mangy crowd of drunken, quarrelsome, 
and song-singing rapscallions. But the thing that 
made sleep all the more a thing not to be dreamed of, 
was my racking impatience to get out of this place and 
find out the whole size of what might have happened 
yonder in the slave-quarters in consequence of that 
intolerable miscarriage of mine. 

It was-a long night, but the morning got around at 
last. I made a full and frank explanation to the court. 
I said I was a slave, the property of the great Earl 
Grip, who had arrived just after dark at the Tabard 
inn in the village on the other side of the water, and 
had stopped there over night, by compulsion, he being 
taken deadly sick with a strange and sudden disorder. 
I had been ordered to cross to the city in all haste and 
bring the best physician; I was doing my best; 
naturally I was running with all my might; the night 
was dark, I ran against this common person here, who 
seized me by the throat and began to pummel me, 
although I told him my errand, and implored him, for 
the sake of the great earl my master’s mortal peril — 

The common person interrupted and said it wasa 
lie; and was going to explain how I rushed upon him 
and attacked him without a word — 


(335) 


336 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


** Silence, sirrah!’’ from the court. ‘‘ Take him 
hence and give him a few stripes whereby to teach 
him how to treat the servant of a nobleman after a 
different fashion another time. Go!’’ 

Then the court begged my pardon, and hoped I 
would not fail to tell his lordship it was in no wise the 
court’s fault that this high-handed thing had happened. 
I said I would make it all right, and so took my leave. 
Took it just in time, too; he was starting to ask me 
why I didn’t fetch out these facts the moment I was 
arrested. I said I would if I had thought of it—- 
which was true—but that I was so battered by that 
man that all my wit was knocked out of me—and 
so forth and so on, and got myself away, still mumbling. 

I didn’t wait for breakfast. No grass grew under 
my feet. I was soon at the slave quarters. Empty— 
everybody gone! That is, everybody except one body 
—-the slave-master’s. It lay there all battered to pulp; 
and all about were the evidences of a terrific fight. 
There was a rude board coffin on a cart at the door, 
and workmen, assisted by the police, were thinning a 
road through the gaping crowd in order that they 
might bring it in. 

I picked out a man humble enough in life to conde- 
scend to talk with one so shabby as I, and got his ac- 
count of the matter. 

** There were sixteen slaves here. They rose against 
_ their master in the aight, and thou seest how it ended.”’ 

**Yes. How did it begin?’’ 

*“'There was no witness but the slaves. They said 
the slave that was most valuable got free of his bonds 
and escaped in some strange way—by magic arts 
twas thought, by reason that he had no key, and the 
locks were neither broke nor in any wise injured. 
When the master discovered his loss, he was mad with 
despair, and threw himself upon his people with his 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 337 


heavy stick, who resisted and brake his back and in 
other and divers ways did give him hurts that brought 
him swiftly to his end.’’ 

** This is dreadful. It will go hard with the slaves, 
no doubt, upon the trial.’’ 

** Marry, the trial is over.’’ 

Ss Overi!’* 

*““Would they be a week, think you—and the 
matter so simple? They were not the half of a quarter 
of an hour at it.’’ 

‘Why, I don’t see how they could determine which 
were the guilty ones in so short a time.’’ 

*“ Which ones? Indeed, they considered not par- 
ticulars like to that. They condemned them in a body. 
Wit ye not the law? — which men say the Romans left 
behind them here when they went—that if one slave 
killeth his master all the slaves of that man must die 
for it.’’ 

‘True. I had forgotten. And when will these 
die?’’ 

** Belike within a four and twenty hours; albeit some 
say they will wait a pair of days more, if peradventure 
they may find the missing one meantime.’’ 

The missing one! It made me feel uncomfortable. 

‘Is it likely they will find him?’’ 

** Before the day is spent—yes. They seek him 
everywhere. They stand at the gates of the town, 
with certain of the slaves who will discover him to 
them if he cometh, and none can pass out but he will 
be first examined.’’ 

** Might one see the place where the rest are con- 
fined ?”’ 

‘*The outside of it—-yes. The inside of it — but 
ye will not want to see that.’’ 

I took the address of that prison for future reference 
and then Sapheai off. At the first second-hand 


338 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


clothing shop I came to, up a back street, I got a 
rough rig suitable for a common seaman who might be 
going on a cold voyage, and bound up my face witha 
liberal bandage, saying I had a toothache. This con- 
cealed my worst bruises. It was a transformation. I 
no longer resembled my former self. Then I struck 
out for that wire, found it and followed it to its den. 
It was a little room over a butcher’s shop— which 
meant that business wasn’t very brisk in the telegraphic 
line. The young chap in charge was drowsing at his 
table. I locked the door and put the vast key in my 
bosom. This alarmed the young fellow, and he was 
going to make a noise; but I said: 

** Save your wind; if you open your mouth you are 
dead, sure. Tackle your instrument. Lively, now! 
Call Camelot.’’ 

‘*This doth amaze me! How should such as you 
know aught of such matters as —’’ 

**Call Camelot! I am a desperate man. Call 
Camelot, or get away from the instrument and I will 
do it myself,’’ 

** What — you?’’ 

**'Yes—certainly. Stop gabbling. Call the palace.’’ 

He made the call. 

** Now, then, call Clarence.’’ 

** Clarence who ?’’ 

*“ Never mind Clarence who. Say you want Clar- 
ence; you’ll get an answer.’’ 

He did so. We waited five nerve-straining minutes 
—ten minutes—how long it did seem!—and then 
came a click that was as familiar to me as a human 
voice; for Clarence had been my own pupil. 

** Now, my lad, vacate! They would have known 
my touch, maybe, and so your call was surest; but I’m 
all right now.’’ 

He vacated the place and cocked his ear to listen — 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 339 


but it didn’t win. I used a cipher. I didn’t waste 
any time in sociabilities with Clarence, but squared 
away for business, straight-off — thus: 

** The king is here and in danger. We were cap- 
tured and brought here as slaves. We should not be 
able to prove our identity —and the fact is, I am not 
in a position to try. Send a telegram for the palace 
here which will carry conviction with it.’’ 

His answer came straight back: 

*“They don’t know anything about the telegraph; 
they haven’t had any experience yet, the line to Lon- 
don isso new. Better not venture that. They might 
hang you. Think up something else.’’ 

Might hang us! Little he knew how closely he was 
crowding the facts. I couldn’t think up anything for 
the moment. Then an idea struck me, and I started 
it along: 

**Send five hundred picked knights with Launcelot 
in the lead; and send them on the jump. Let them 
enter. by the southwest gate, and look out for the man 
with a white cloth around his right arm.’’ 

The answer was prompt: 

** They shall start in half an hour.’’ 

** All right, Clarence; now tell this lad here that I’m 
a friend of yours and a dead-head; and that he must 
be discreet and say nothing about this visit of mine.’’ 

The instrument began to talk to the youth and I 
hurried away. I fell to ciphering. In half an hour it 
would be nine o’clock. Knights and horses in heavy 
armor couldn’t travel very fast. These would make 
the best time they could, and now that the ground was 
in good condition, and no snow or mud, they would 
probably make a seven-mile gait; they would have to 
change horses a couple of times; they would arrive 
about six, or a little after; it would still be plenty light 
enough; they would see the white cloth which I should 

v 


340 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


tie around my right arm, and I would take command. 
We would surround that prison and have the king out 
in no time. It would be showy and_ picturesque 
enough, all things considered, though I would have 
preferred noonday, on account of the more theatrical 
aspect the thing would have. 

Now, then, in order to increase the strings to my 
bow, I thought I would look up some of those people 
whom I had formerly recognized, and make myself 
known. That would help us out of our scrape, with- 
out the knights. But I must proceed cautiously, for it 
was a risky business. I must get into sumptuous 
raiment, and it wouldn’t do to run and jump into it. 
No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after 
suit of clothes, in shops wide apart, and getting a little 
finer article with each change, until I should finally 
reach silk and velvet, and be ready for my project. 
So I started. 

But the scheme fell through like scat! The first 
corner I turned, I came plump upon one of our slaves, 
snooping around with a watchman. I coughed at the 
moment, and he gave me a sudden look that bit right 
into my marrow. I judge he thought he had heard 
that cough before. I turned immediately into a shop 
and worked along down the counter, pricing things 
and watching out of the corner of my eye. Those 
people had stopped, and were talking together and 
‘looking in at the door. I made up my mind to get 
out the back way, if there was a back way, and I asked 
the shopwoman if I could step out there and look for 
the escaped slave, who was believed to be in hiding 
back there somewhere, and said I was an officer in 
disguise, and my pard was yonder at the door with 
one of the murderers in charge, and would she be good 
enough to step there and tell him he needn’t wait, but 
had better go at once to the further end of the back 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 341 


alley and be ready to head him off when I rousted him 
out. 

She was blazing with eagerness to see one of those 
already celebrated murderers, and she started on the 
errand at once. I slipped out the back way, locked 
the door behind me, put the key in my pocket and 
started off, chuckling to myself and comfortable. 

Well, I had gone and spoiled it again, made another 
mistake. A double one, in fact. There were plenty 
of ways to get rid of that officer by some simple and 
plausible device, but no, I must pick out a picturesque 
one; it is the crying defect of my character. And 
then, I had ordered my procedure upon what the 
officer, being human, would zaturally do; whereas 
when you are least expecting it, a man will now and 
then go and do the very thing which it’s of natural 
for him to do. The natural thing for the officer to do, 
in this case, was to follow straight on my heels; he 
would find a stout oaken door, securely locked, be- 
tween him and me; before he could break it down, I 
should be far away and engaged in slipping into a suc- 
cession of baffling disguises which would soon get me 
into a sort of raiment which was a surer protection 
from meddling law-dogs in Britain than any amount of 
mere innocence and purity of character. But instead 
of doing the natural thing, the officer took me at my 
word, and followed my instructions. And so, as I 
came trotting out of that cul de sac, full of satisfaction 
with my own cleverness, he turned the corner and I 
walked right into his handcuffs. If I had known it was 
a cul de sac— however, there isn’t any excusing a 
blunder like that, let it go. Charge it up to profit and 
loss. 

Of course, I was indignant, and swore I had just 
come ashore from a long voyage, and all that sort of 
thing — just to see, you know, if it would deceive that 


342 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


slave. But it didn’t. He knew me. Then I re- 
proached him for betraying me. He was more sur- 
prised than hurt. He stretched his eyes wide, and 
said : 

‘** What, wouldst have me let thee, of all men, escape 
and not hang with us, when thou’rt the very cause of 
our hanging? Go to!’’ 

‘* Go to’’ was their way of saying ‘‘ I should smile !’’ 
or ‘‘I like that!’’ Queer talkers, those people. 

Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view 
of the case, and so I dropped the matter. When you 
can’t cure a disaster by argument, what is the use to 
argue? Itisn’t my way. SolI only said: 

‘*'You’re not going to be hanged. None of us are.’’ 

Both men laughed, and the slave said: 

‘“Ye have not ranked as a fool—before. - You 
might better keep your reputation, seeing the strain 
would not be for long.’’ 

‘Tt will stand it, I reckon. Before to-morrow we 
shall be out of prison, and free to go where we will, 
besides.’’ 

The witty officer lifted at his left ear with his thumb, 
made a rasping noise in his throat, and said: 

**Out of prison—yes—ye say true. And free 
likewise to go where ye will, so ye wander not out of 
his grace the Devil’s sultry realm.’’ 

I kept my temper, and said, indifferently: 

*“Now I suppose you really think we are going to 
hang within a day or two,.’’ 

‘‘T thought it not many minutes ago, for so the 
thing was decided and proclaimed.”’ 

** Ah, then you’ve changed your mind, is that it?’’ 

**Even that. I only chought, then; I know, now.’’ 

I felt sarcastical, so I said: 

** Oh, sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell] 
us, then, what you kvow.’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 343 


“That ye will all be hanged /o-day, at mid-after- 
noon! Oho! that shot hit home! Lean upon me.’’ 

The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody. My 
knights couldn’t arrive in time. They would be as 
much as three hours too late. Nothing in the world 
could save the King of England; nor me, which was 
more important. More important, not merely to me, 
but to the nation—the only nation on earth standing 
ready to blossom into civilization. I was sick. I said 
no more, there wasn’t anything to say. I knew what 
the man meant; that if the missing slave was found, 
the postponement would be revoked, the execution 
take place to-day. Well, the missing slave was found. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 


SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE 


EARING four in the afternoon. The scene. was 
just outside the walls of London. A cool, com- 
fortable, superb day, with a brilliant sun; the kind of 
day to make one want to live, not die. The multitude 
was prodigious and far-reaching; and yet we fifteen 
poor devils hadn’t a friend in it. There was something 
painful in that thought, look at it how you might. 
There we sat, on our tall scaffold, the butt of the hate 
and mockery of all those enemies. We were being 
made a holiday spectacle. They had built a sort of 
grand stand for the nobility and gentry, and these were 
there in full force, with their ladies. We recognized a 
good many of them. 

The crowd got a brief and unexpected dash of 
diversion out of the king. The moment we were 
freed of our bonds he sprang up, in his fantastic rags, 
with face bruised out of all recognition, and proclaimed 
himself Arthur, King of Britain, and denounced the 
awful penalties of treason upon every soul there present 
if hair of his sacred head were touched. It startled 
and surprised him to hear them break into a vast roar 
of laughter. It wounded his dignity, and he locked 
himself up in silence, then, although the crowd begged 
him to go on, and tried to provoke him to it by cat- 
calls, jeers, and shouts of 


(344) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 3.45 


“Let him speak! The king! The king! his hum- 
ble subjects hunger and thirst for words of wisdom out 
of the mouth of their master his Serene and Sacred 
Raggedness !’’ 

But it went for nothing. He put on all his majesty 
and sat under this rain of contempt and insult un- 
moved. He certainly was great in his way. Absently, 
I had taken off my white bandage and wound it about 
my right arm. When the crowd noticed this, they 
began upon me. They said: 

** Doubtless this sailor-man is his minister — observe 
his costly badge of office !’’ 

I let them go on until they got tired, and then I 
said : 

‘Yes, Iam his minister, The Boss; and to-morrow 
you will hear that from Camelot which —’’ 

I got no further. They drowned me out with joyous 
derision. But presently there was silence; for the 
sheriffs of London, in their official robes, with their 
subordinates, began to make a stir which indicated 
that business was about to begin. In the hush which 
followed, our crime was recited, the death warrant 
read, then everybody uncovered while a priest uttered 
a prayer. 

Then a slave was blindfolded; the hangman unslung 
his rope. There lay the smooth road below us, we 
upon one side of it, the banked multitude walling its 
other side —a good clear road, and kept free by the 
police — how good it would be to see my five hundrec 
horsemen come tearing down it! But no, it was out 
of the possibilities. I followed its receding thread out 
into the distance—— not a horseman on it, or sign of 
one, 

There was a jerk, and the slave hung dangling; 
dangling and hideously squirming, for his limbs were 
not tied. 


346 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


A second rope was unslung, in a moment another 
slave was dangling. 

In a minute a third slave was struggling in the air. 
It was dreadful. I turned away my head a moment, 
and when I turned back I missed the king! They 
were blindfolding him! I was paralyzed; I couldn’t 
move, I was choking, my tongue was petrified. They 
finished blindfolding him, they led him under the 
rope. I couldn’t shake off that clinging impotence. 
But when I saw them put the noose around his neck, 
then everything let go in me and I made a spring 
to the rescue—and as I made it I shot one 
more glance abroad——-by George! here they came, 
a-tilting!-—~ five hundred mailed and belted knights on 
bicycles ! 

The grandest sight that ever was seen. Lord, how 
the plumes streamed, how the sun flamed and flashed 
from the endless procession of webby wheels! 

I waved my right arm as Launcelot swept in — he 
recognized my rag —I tore away noose and bandage, 
and shouted: 

‘*On your knees, every rascal of you, and salute the 
king! Who fails shall sup in hell to-night !’’ 

I always use that high style when I’m climaxing an 
effect. Well, it was noble to see Launcelot and the 
boys swarm up onto that scaffold. and heave sheriffs 
and such overboard. And it was fine to see that 
astonished multitude go down on their knees and beg 
their lives of the king they had just been deriding and 
insulting. And as he stood apart there, receiving this 
homage in rags, I thought to myself, well, really there 
zs something peculiarly grand about the gait and bear- 
ing of a king, after all. 

I was immensely satisfied. Take the whole situation 
all around, it was one of the gaudiest effects I eves 
instigated. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 347 


And presently up comes Clarence, his own self! and 
winks, and says, very modernly: 

** Good deal of a surprise, wasn’t it? I knew you’d 
like it. I’ve had the boys practicing this long time, 
privately; and just hungry for a chance to show off.”’ 

23 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


THE YANKEE’S FIGHT WITH THE KNIGHTS 


OME again, at Camelot. A morning or two later 

I found the paper, damp from the press, by my 

plate at the breakfast table. I turned to the adver- 

tising coiumns, knowing I should find something of 
nersonal interest to me there. It was this: 


DE PAR LE RCI. 


stnow that the great lord and illus- 
trious Kni8ht, SIR SAGRAMOR LE 
DESIyOUS naving condescended to 
meet the King’s Minister, Hank Mor- 
gan, the which is surnamed The Boss, 
for satisfgction of offence anciently given, 
these will engage in the lists by 
Camelot about the fourth hour of the 
morning of the sixteenth day of this 
next succeeding month. The bettle 
wiil be 4 ! outrance, sith the said offence 
was of a deadly sort, admitting of no 
com Position. 

DE PAR LE yOr 


(348) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 349 


Clarence’s editorial reference to this affair was to this 


effect : 
thdrew. It will be observed, by a gl7nce at ourfour disappoiatrs! 
work maintained|advertising columns, that the commu-|gromptly and-{ 
there since, soon|nity is to be favored mith a treat of un-|two of their felo 
lastic have wity|usual interest in the tournament line.|erlain, and othe 
oked interest|The names of the artists are warrant oflers have§alieach 
upon the ergn-|good enterfemment. The  box-office|spoken, you b 
ve been m & djwill be open at noon of the 13th; ad-|furnisned for 
by the an Bs, mission 3 cents, reserved seats 5; pro-|their use, m 
ent out ch4@y by|ceeds to go to the hospital fund yhe}make and 
gterian Bg, andjroyal pair and all the Court will be pres-|the yind 
¢ some yng menjent. With these exceptions, and thejletters 
of our under the] press and the clergy, the free list is strict-|oj introd 
i guidance of tha/ly susf[ended. Parties are hereby warn-jduction whi 
4o¢ aid in agknown|ed against buying tickets of speculators; |they are unin 
fx: great enterprise|they will not be good at the door.jing friends to us 
of making pure;|Everybody knows and likes The Boss,]ried, and leave tke 
esen} everybody knows and likes Sir Sag.;jthotZkind words en 
a.vement had its}come, let us give tne lads a good send-|which you my joy- 
origin in preven-joff. ReMember, tne proceeds go to alhind; and it is 2 
has ever been algreat and free charity, and one whose}home matter of & 
sions id our}broad begevolence stretches out its help-]it is our durp 
on the wis-|ing hand, warm with the blood of a lov-jdirect them to 
other onejing heart, to all that suyer, regardless of/now under the * 
ospel,irace, creed, condition or color—thelg fields as are 
by-jonly charity yet established in tne earth} 7nesefyound niet: 
ejwhich has no _politico-religious stop-jare warm-hearted 
The|cock on its compassion, but says Herejazil, regions bes 
the satue|flows Sthe stream, let @/7 come andjnot to “build o 
Co represent|drink! urn out, all hands! fetcF along}ond,’, and the 
ized thirty of/your dou3hnuts and your gum-drops|der instructi 
aeeds and hear-}and have a good time. Pie for sale onjons of our 
which,syears age !|the grounds, and rocks to crack it with; |another mat 
$resgn was osgan-jalso ciRcus-lemonade—three drops of] founhati’s on., 
ing, the missions, |lime juice to a barrel of water. ociety, which 
sso that both had} N. B. This is the first tournamenj|They go un- 
to withdraw‘ and|under the new law, whidh allow each\say tyat **inr 
much to their| combatant to use any weapon he ma 9 pre-\ionaries to mon 


= grief,|fz7. You want to make a note of *yeyy|say sending miss 


350 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


Up to the day set, there was no talk in all Britain of 
anything but this combat. All other topics sank into 
insignificance and passed out of men’s thoughts and 
interest. It was not because a tournament was a great 
matter; it was not because Sir Sagramor had found 
the Holy Grail, for he had not, but had failed; it was 
not because the second (official) personage in the king- 
dom was one of the duellists; no, all these features 
were commonplace. Yet there was abundant reason 
for the extraordinary interest which this coming fight 
was creating. It was born of the fact that all the 
nation knew that this was not to be a duel between 
mere men, so to speak, but a duel between two mighty 
magicians; a duel not of muscle but of mind, not of 
human skill but of superhuman a-t and craft; a final 
struggle for supremacy between the two master en- 
chanters of the age. It was realized that the most 
prodigious achievements of the most renowned knights 
could not be worthy of comparison with a spectacle 
like this; they could be but child’s play, contrasted 
with this mysterious and awful battle of the gods. 
Yes, all the world knew it was going to be in reality a 
duel between Merlin and me, a measuring of his magic 
powers against mine. It was known that Merlin had 
been busy whole days and nights together, imbuing Sir 
Sagramor’s arms and armor with supernal powers of 
offense and defense, and that he had procured for him 
from the spirits of the air a fleecy veil which would 
render the wearer invisible to his antagonist while 
still visible to other men. Against Sir Sagramor, so 
weaponed and protected, a thousand knights could 
accomplish nothing; against him no known enchant- 
ments could prevail. These facts were sure; regard- 
ing them there was no doubt, no reason for doubt. 
There was but one question: might there be still other 
enchantments, waknown to Merlin, which could render 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 354 


Sir Sagramor’s veil transparent to me, and make his 
enchanted mail vulnerable to my weapons? This was 
the one thing to be decided in the lists. Until then 
the world must remain in suspense. 

So the world thought there was a vast matter at stake 
here, and the world was right, but it was not the one 
they had in their minds. No, a far vaster one was 
upon the cast of this die: the life of knight-errantry. 
I was a champion, it was true, but not the champion 
of the frivolous black arts, I was the champion of hard 
unsentimental common-sense and reason. I was enter- 
ing the lists to either destroy knight-errantry or be its 
victim. 

Vast as the show-grounds were, there were no vacant 
spaces in them outside of the lists, at ten o’clcock on 
the morning of the 16th. The mammoth grand-stand 
was clothed in flags, streamers, and rich tapestries, and 
packed with several acres of small-fry tributary kings, 
their suites, and the British aristocracy; with our own 
royal gang in the chief place, and each and every 
individual a flashing prism of gaudy silks and velvets — 
well, I never saw anything to begin with it but a fight 
between an Upper Mississippi sunset and the aurora 
borealis. The huge camp of beflagged and gay- 
colored tents at one end of the lists, with a stiff- 
standing sentinel at every door and a shining shield 
hanging by him for challenge, was another fine sight. 
. You see, every knight was there who had any ambition 
or any caste feeling; for my feeling toward their order 
was not much of a secret, and so here was their 
chance. If I won my fight with Sir Sagramor, others 
would have the right to call me out as long as [ mighe 
be willing to respond. 

Down at cur end there were but two tents; one for 
me, and another for my servants. At the appointed 
hour the king made a sign, and the heralds, in their 


352 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


tabards, appeared and made proclamation, naming the 
combatants and stating the cause of quarrel. There 
was a pause, then a ringing bugle-blast, which was the 
signal for us to come forth. All the multitude caught 
their breath, and an eager curiosity flashed into every 
face. 

Out from his tent rode great Sir Sagramor, an im- 
posing tower of iron, stately and rigid, his huge spear 
standing upright in its socket and grasped in his strong 
hand, his grand horse’s face and breast cased in steel, 
his body clothed in rich trappings that almost dragged 
the ground — oh, a most noble picture. A great shout 
went up, of welcome and admiration. 

And then out Icame. But I didn’t get any shout. 
There was a wondering and eloquent silence for a mo- 
ment, then a great wave of laughter began to sweep 
along that human sea, but a warning bugle-blast cut its 
career short. I was in the simplest and comfortablest 
of gymnast costumes — flesh-colored tights from neck 
to heel, with blue silk puffings about my loins, and 
bareheaded. My horse was not above medium size, 
but he was alert, slender-limbed, muscled with watch- 
springs, and just a greyhound to go. He was a beauty, 
glossy as silk, and naked as he was when he was born, 
except for bridle and ranger-saddle. 

The iron tower and the gorgeous bedquilt came 
cumbrously but gracefully pirouetting down the lists, 
and we tripped lightly up to meet them. We halted; 
the tower saluted, I responded; then we wheeled and 
rode side by side to the grand-stand and faced our king 
and queen, to whom we made obeisance. The queen 
exclaimed: 

** Alack, Sir Boss, wilt fight naked, and without 
lance or sword or —”’ 

But the king checked her and made her understand, 
with a polite phrase or two, that this was none of her 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 353 


business. The bugles rang again; and we separated 
and rode to the ends of the lists, and took position. 
Now old Merlin stepped into view and cast a dainty 
web of gossamer threads over Sir Sagramor which 
turned him into Hamlet’s ghost; the king made a 
sign, the bugles blew, Sir Sagramor laid his great 
lance in rest, and the next moment here he came 
thundering down the course with his veil flying out 
behind, and I went whistling through the air like an 
arrow to meet him—cocking my ear the while, as if 
noting the invisible knight’s position and progress by 
hearing, not sight. A chorus of encouraging shouts 
burst out for him, and one brave voice flung outa 
heartening word for me — said: 

** Go it, slim Jim!’’ 

It was an even bet that Clarence had procured that 
favor for me — and furnished the language, too. When 
that formidable lance-point was within a yard and a 
half of my breast I twitched my horse aside without an 
effort, and the big knight swept by, scoring a blank. 
I got plenty of applause that time. We turned, 
braced up, and down we came again. Another blank 
for the knight, a roar of applause for me. This same 
thing was repeated once more; and it fetched sucha 
whirlwind of applause that Sir Sagramor lost his 
temper, and at once changed his tactics and set him- 
self the task of chasing me down. Why, he hadn’t 
any show in the world at that; it was a game of tag, 
with all the advantage on my side; I whirled out of 
his path with ease whenever I chose, and once I 
slapped him on the back as I went to the rear. Finally 
I took the chase into my own hands; and after that, 
turn, or twist, or do what he would, he was never able 
to get behind me again; he found himself always in 
front at the end of his maneuver. So he gave up’that 
business and retired to his end of the lists. His temper 

23 


354 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


was clear gone now, and he forgot himself and flung 
an insult at me which disposed of mine. I slipped my 
lasso from the horn of my saddle, and grasped the coil 
in my right hand. This time you should have seen 
him come! —it was a business trip, sure; by his gait 
there was blood in his eye. I was sitting my horse at 
ease, and swinging the great loop of my lasso in wide 
circles about my head; the moment he was under way, 
I started for him; when the space between us had 
narrowed to forty feet, I sent the snaky spirals of the 
rope a-cleaving through the air, then darted aside and 
faced about and brought my trained animal to a halt 
with all his feet braced under him for a surge. The 
next moment the rope sprang taut and yanked Sir 
Sagramor out of the saddle! Great Scott, but there 
was a sensation ! 

Unquestionably, the popular thing in this world is 
novelty. These people had never seen anything of 
that cowboy business before, and it carried them clear 
off their feet with delight. From all around and every- 
where, the shout went up: 

** Encore! encore!’’ 

I wondered where they got the word, but there was 
no time to cipher on philological matters, because the 
whole knight-errantry hive was just humming now, and 
my prospect for trade couldn’t have been better. The 
moment my lasso was released and Sir Sagramor had 
been assisted to his tent, I hauled in the slack, took 
my station and began to swing my loop around my 
head again. Iwas sure to have use for it as soon as 
they could elect a successor for Sir Sagramor, and 
that couldn’t take long where there were so many 
hungry candidates. Indeed, they elected one straight 
off-— Sir Hervis de Revel. 

zz/ Here he came, like a house afire; I dodged: 
he passed like a flash, with my horse-hair coils settling 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 355 


around his neck; a second or so later, fs¢/ his saddle 
was empty. 

I got another encore; and another, and another, and 
still another. When I had snaked five men out, things 
began to look serious to the ironclads, and they 
stopped and consulted together. Asa result, they de- 
cided that it was time to waive etiquette and send their 
greatest and best against me. To the astonishment of 
that little world, I lassoed Sir Lamorak de Galis, and 
after him Sir Galahad. So you see there was simply 
nothing to be done now, but play their right bower — 
bring out the superbest of the superb, the mightiest of 
the mighty, the great Sir Launcelot himself ! 

A proud moment for me? I should think so. 
Yonder was Arthur, King of Britain; yonder was 
Guenever; yes, and whole tribes of little provincial 
kings and kinglets; and in the tented camp yonder, 
renowned knights from many lands; and likewise the 
selectest body known to chivalry, the Knights of the 
Table Round, the most illustrious in Christendom; and 
biggest fact of all, the very sun of their shining system 
was yonder couching his lance, the focal point of forty 
thousand adoring eyes; and all by myself, here was I 
laying for him. Across my mind flitted the dear 
image of a certain hello-girl of West Hartford, and I 
wished she could see me now. In that moment, down 
came the Invincible, with the rush of a whirlwind ~— 
the courtly world rose to its feet and bent forward — 
the fateful coils went circling through the air, and 
before you could wink I was towing Sir Launcelot 
across the field on his back, and kissing my hand to 
the storm of waving kerchiefs and the thunder-crash of 
applause that greeted me! 

Said I to myself, as I coiled my lariat and hung it on 
my saddle-horn, and sat there drunk with glory, ‘* The 


victory is perfect — no other will venture against me —~ 
Ww 


356 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


knight-errantry is dead.’’ Now imagine my astonish- 
ment — and everybody else’s, too — to hear the peculiar 
bugle-call which announces that another competitor is 
about to enter the lists! There was a mystery here; I 
couldn’t account for this thing. Next, I noticed Mer- 
lin gliding away from me; and then I noticed that my 
lasso was gone! The old sleight-of-hand expert had 
stolen it, sure, and slipped it under his robe. 

The bugle blew again. I looked, and down came 
Sagramor riding again, with his dust brushed off and 
his veil nicely re-arranged. I trotted up to meet him, 
and pretended to find him by the sound of his horse’s 

hoofs. He said: 
| ** Thou’ rt quick of ear, but it will not save fabs from 
this!’’ and he touched the hilt of his great sword. 
‘** An ye are not able to see it, because of the influence 
of the veil, know that it is no cumbrous lance, but a 
sword — and I ween ye will not be able to avoid it.’’ 

His visor was up; there was death in his smile. I 
should never be able to dodge his sword, that was 
plain. Somebody was going to die this time. If he 
got the drop on me, I could name the corpse. We 
rode forward together, and saluted the royalties. This 
time the king was disturbed. He said: 

‘* Where is thy strange weapon?’’ 

‘*Tt is stolen, sire,’’ 

** Hast another at hand?’’ 

‘* No, sire, I brought only the one.’? 

Then Merlin mixed in: 

‘* He brought but the one because there was but the 
one to bring. There exists none other but that one. 
Yt belongeth to the king of the Demons of the Sea. 
This man is a pretender, and ignorant; else he had 
known that that weapon can be used in but eight 
bouts only, and then it vanisheth away to its home 
under the sea.’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 357 


**Then is he weaponless,’’ said the king. ‘* Sir 
Sagramor, ye will grant him leave to borrow.”’ 

““And I will lend!’’ said Sir Launcelot, limping 
up. ‘*He is as brave a knight of his hands as any 
that be on live, and he shall have mine.’’ 

He put his hand on his sword to draw it, but Sir 
Sagramor said: 

‘Stay, it may not be. He shall fight with his own 
weapons; it was his privilege to choose them and bring 
them. If he has erred, on his head be it.’’ 

*“Knight!’’ said the king. ‘* Thou’rt overwrought 
with passion; it disorders thy mind. Wouldst kill a 
naked man?’’ 

*“*An he do it, he shall answer it to me,’’ said Sir 
Launcelot. 

“*T will answer it to any he that desireth!’’ retorted 
Sir Sagramor hotly. : 

Merlin broke in, rubbing his hands and smiling his 
lowdownest smile of malicious gratification: 

***Tis well said, right well said! And ’tis enough 
of parleying, let my lord the king deliver the battle 
signal.”’ 

The king had to yield. The bugle made proclama- 
tion, and we turned apart and rode to our stations. 
There we stood, a hundred yards apart, facing each 
other, rigid and motionless, like horsed statues. And 
sO we remained, in a soundless hush, as much as a full 
minute, everybody gazing, nobody stirring. It seemed 
as if the king could not take heart to give the signal. 
But at last he lifted his hand, the clear note of the 
bugle followed, Sir Sagramor’s long blade described a 
flashing curve in the air, and it was superb to see him 
come. I sat still. On he came. IJ did not move. 
People got so excited that they shcuted to me: 

**Fly, fly! Save thyself! This is murther!’’ 

I never budged so much as an inch till that thunder- 


358 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ing apparition had got within fifteen paces of me; then 
I snatched a dragoon revolver out of my holster, there 
was a flash and a roar, and the revolver was back in 
the holster before anybody could tell what had hap- 
pened. 

Here was a riderless horse plunging by, and yonder 
lay Sir Sagramor, stone dead. 

The people that ran to him were stricken dumb to 
find that the life was actually gone out of the man and 
no reason for it visible, no hurt upon his body, nothing 
like a wound. There was a hole through the breast of 
his chain-mail, but they attached no importance to a 
little thing like that; and as a bullet wound there pro- 
duces but little blood, none came in sight because of 
the clothing and swaddlings under the armor. The 
body was dragged over to let the king and the swells 
look down upon it. They were stupefied with aston- 
ishment naturally. I was requested to come and ex- 
plain the miracle. But I remained in my tracks, like 
a statue, and said: 

*“Tf it is a command, I will come, but my lord the 
king knows that I am where the laws of combat require 
me to remain while any desire to come against me.’’ 

I waited. Nobody challenged. Then I said: 

**If there are any who doubt that this field is well 
and fairly won, I do not wait for them to challenge 
me, I challenge them.’’ 

‘** It is a gallant offer,’’ said the king, ‘* and well be- 
seems you. Whom will you name first?’’ 

“*T name none, I challenge all! Here I stand, and 
dare the chivalry of England to come against me — not 
by individuals, but in mass!’’ 

** What!’’ shouted a score of knights. 

**'You have heard the challenge. Take it, or I pro- 
claim you recreant knights and vanquished, every 
one }"’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 359 


It was a ‘‘ bluff’’ you know. At sucha time it is 
sound judgment to put ona bold face and play your 
hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine 
times out of fifty nobody dares to ‘“‘call,’’ and you 
rake in the chips. But just this once — well, things 
looked squally! In just no time, five hundred knights 
were scrambling into their saddles, and before you 
could wink a widely scattering drove were under way 
and clattering down upon me. I snatched both revol- 
vers from the holsters and began to measure distances 
and calculate chances. 

Bang! One saddle empty. Bang! another one. 
Bang — bang, and I bagged two. Well, it was nip and 
tuck with us, and I knew it. If I spent the eleventh 
shot without convincing these people, the twelfth man 
would kill me, sure. And so I never did feel so happy 
as I did when my ninth downed its man and I detected 
the wavering in the crowd which is premonitory of 
panic. An instant lost now could knock out my last 
chance. But I didn’t lose it. I raised both revolvers 
and pointed them —the halted host stood their ground 
just about one good square moment, then broke and 
fled. 

The day was mine. Knight-errantry was a doomed 
institution. The march of civilization was begun. 
How did I feel? Ah, you never could imagine it. 

And Brer Merlin? His stock was flat again. Some- 
how, every time the magic of fol-de-rol tried conclu- 
sions with the magic of science, the magic of fol-de-rol 
got left. 


CHAPTER XL. 


THREE YEARS LATER 


HEN I broke the back of knight-errantry that 

time, I no longer felt obliged to work in secret. 

So, the very next day I exposed my hidden schools, 

my mines, and my vast system of clandestine factories 

and workshops to an astonished world. That is to 

say, I exposed the nineteenth century to the inspec- 
tion of the sixth. 

Well, it is always a good plan to follow up an 
advantage promptly. The knights were temporarily 
down, but if I would keep them so I must just simply 
paralyze them — nothing short of that would answer. 
You see, I was ‘‘ bluffing’’ that last time in the field; 
it would be natural for them to work around to that 
conclusion, if I gave them a chance. So I must not 
give them time; and I didn’t. 

I renewed my challenge, engraved it on brass, posted 
it up where any priest could read it to them, and also 
kept it standing in the advertising columns of the 
paper. 

I not only renewed it, but added to its proportions. 
I said, name the day, and I would take fifty assistants 
and stand up against the massed chivalry of the whole 
earth and destroy tt. 

I was not bluffing this time. I meant what I said; 
I could do what I promised. There wasn’t any way 


(360) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 361 


to misunderstand the language of that challenge. 
Even the dullest of the chivalry perceived that this 
was a plain case of ‘‘put up, or shut up.’’ They 
were wise and did the latter. In all the next three 
years they gave me no trouble worth mentioning. 

Consider the three years sped. Now look around 
on England. A happy and prosperous country, and 
strangely altered. Schools everywhere, and several 
colleges; a number of pretty good newspapers. Even 
authorship was taking a start; Sir Dinadan the Humor- 
ist was first in the field, with a volume of gray-headed 
jokes which I had been familiar with during thirteen 
centuries. If he had left out that old rancid one about 
the lecturer I wouldn’t have said anything; but I 
couldn’t stand that one. I suppressed the book and 
hanged the author. 

Slavery was dead and gone; all men were equal 
before the law; taxation had been equalized. The 
telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the type- 
writer, the sewing-machine, and all the thousand will- 
ing and handy servants of steam and electricity were 
working their way into favor. We had a steamboat or 
two on the Thames, we had steam warships, and the 
beginnings of a steam commercial marine; I was getting 
ready to send out an expedition to discover America. 

We were building several lines of railway, and our 
line from Camelot to London was already finished and 
in operation. I was shrewd enough to make all offices 
connected with the passenger service places of high 
and distinguished honor. My idea was to attract the 
chivalry and nobility, and make them useful and keep 
them out of mischief. The plan worked very well, the 
competition for the places was hot. The conductor of 
the 4.33 express was a duke; there wasn’t a passenger 
conductor on the line below the degree of earl. They 
were good men, every one, but they had two defects 


362 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


which I couldn’t cure, and so had to wink at: they 
wouldn’t lay aside their armor, and they would “* knock 
down’’ fare —I mean rob the company. 

There was hardly a knight in all the land who wasn’t 
in some useful employment. They were going from 
end to end of the country in all manner of useful 
missionary capacities; their penchant for wandering, 
and their experience in it, made them altogether the 
most effective spreaders of civilization we had. They 
went clothed in steel and equipped with sword and 
lance and battle-axe, and if they couldn’t persuade a 
person to try a sewing-machine on the installment 
plan, or a melodeon, or a barbed-wire fence, or a 
prohibition journal, or any of the other thousand and 
one things they canvassed for, they removed him and 
passed on. 

I was very happy. Things were working steadily 
toward a secretly longed-for point. You see, i had 
two schemes in my head which were the vastest of all 
my projects. The one was to overthrow the Catholic 
Church and set up the Protestant faith on its ruins— 
not as an Established Church, but a go-as-you-please 
one; and the other project was to get a decree issued 
by and by, commanding that upon Arthur’s death 
unlimited suffrage should be introduced, and given to 
men and women alike—at any rate to all men, wise 
or unwise, and to all mothers who at middle age should 
be found to know nearly as much as their sons at 
twenty-one. Arthur was good for thirty years yet, he 
being about my own age— that is to say, forty — and 
I believed that in that time I could easily have the 
active part of the population of that day ready and 
eager for an event which should be the first of its kind 
in the history of the world—a rounded and complete 
governmental revolution without bloodshed. The re- 
sult to be a republic. Well, I may as well confess, 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 363 


though I do feel ashamed when I think of it: I was 
beginning to have a base hankering to be its first presi- 
dent myself. Yes, there was more or less human 
nature in me; I found that out. 

Clarence was with me as concerned the revolution, 
but in a modified way. His idea was a republic, with- 
out privileged orders, but with a hereditary royal 
family at the head of it instead of an elective chief 
magistrate. He believed that no nation that had ever 
known the joy of worshiping a royal family could 
ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die of 
melancholy. I urged that kings were dangerous. He 
said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family 
of cats would answer every purpose. They would be 
as useful as any other royal family, they would know 
as much, they would have the same virtues and the 
same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shin- 
dies with other royal cats, they would be laughably 
vain and absurd and never know it, they would be 
wholly inexpensive; finaliy, they would have as sound 
a divine right as any other rcyal house, and ‘‘ Tom 
VII., or Tom Xi., or Tom XIV. by the grace of God 
King,’’ would sound as well as it would when applied 
to the ordinary royal tomcat with tights on. ‘* And as 
a rule,’’ said he, in his neat modern English, ‘‘ the 
character of these cats would be considerably above 
the character of the average king, and this would be 
an immense moral advantage to the nation, for the 
reason that a nation always models its morals after its 
monarch’s. The worship of royalty being founded in 
unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily 
become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed 
more so, because it would presently be noticed that 
they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned 
nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, 


and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence 
24 


564 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


than the customary human king, and would certainly 
get it. The eyes of the whole harried world would 
soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system, 
and royal butchers would presently begin to disappear ; 
their subjects would fill the vacancies with catlings 
from our own royal house; we should become a fac- 
tory; we should supply the thrones of the world; 
within forty years all Europe would be governed by 
cats, and we should furnish the cats. The reign of 
universal peace would begin then, to end no more 
porever eC Ne Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow — fat !— wow !”’ 

Hang him, I supposed he was in earnest, and was 
beginning to be persuaded by him, until he exploded 
that cat-howl and startled me almost out of my clothes. 
But he never could be in earnest. He didn’t know 
what it was. He had pictured a distinct and perfectly 
rational and feasible improvement upon constitutional 
monarchy, but he was too feather-headed to know it, 
or care anything about it, either. I was going to give 
him a scolding, but Sandy came flying in at that 
moment, wild with terror, and so choked with sobs that 
for a minute she could not get her voice. I ran and 
took her in my arms, and lavished caresses upon her 
and said, beseechingly: 

‘* Speak, darling, speak! What is it?’’ 

Her head fell limp upon my bosom, and she gasped, 
almost inaudibly: 

** HELLO-CENTRAL !”’ 

‘*Quick!’’ I shouted to Clarence; ‘‘ telephone the 
king’s homeopath to come!’’ 

In two minutes I was kneeling by the child’s crib, 
and Sandy was dispatching servants here, there, and 
everywhere, all over the palace. I took in the situa- 
tion almost at a glance— membranous croup! I bent 
down and whispered: 

‘*Wake up, sweetheart! Hello-Central!’’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 365 


She opened her soft eyes languidly, and made out 
to say: 

66 Papa.’’ 

That was a comfort. She was far from dead yet. I 
sent for preparations of sulphur, I rousted out the 
croup-kettle myself; for I don’t sit down and wait for 
doctors when Sandy or the child is sick. I knew how 
to nurse both of them, and had had experience. This 
little chap had lived in my arms a good part of its 
small life, and often I could soothe away its troubles 
and get it to laugh through the tear-dews on its eye- 
lashes when even its mother couldn’t. 

Sir Launcelot, in his richest armor, came striding 
along the great hall now on his way to the stock- 
board; he was president of the stock-board, and occu- 
pied the Siege Perilous, which he had bought of Sir 
Galahad; for the stock-board consisted of the Knights 
of the Round Table, and they used the Round Table 
for business purposes now. Seats at it were worth— 
well, you would never believe the figure, so it is no 
use to state it. Sir Launcelot was a bear, and he had 
put up acorner in one of the new lines, and was just 
getting ready to squeeze the shorts to-day; but what 
of that? He was the same old Launcelot, and when 
he glanced in as he was passing the door and found out 
that his pet was sick, that was enough for him; bulls 
and bears might fight it out their own way for all him, 
he would come right in here and stand by little Hello- 
Central for all he was worth. And that was what he 
did. He shied his helmet into the corner, and in half 
a minute he had a new wick in the alcohol lamp and 
was firing up on the croup-kettle. By this time Sandy 
had built a blanket canopy over the crib, and every- 
thing was ready. 

Sir Launceleot got up steam, he and I loaded up the 


kettle with unslaked lime ana carbolic acid, with a 
24 


366 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


touch of lactic acid added thereto, then filled the thing 
up with water and inserted the steam-spout under the 
canopy. Everything was ship-shape now, and we sat 
down on either side of the crib to stand our watch. 
Sandy was so grateful and so comforted that she 
charged a couple of church-wardens with willow-bark 
and sumach-tobacco for us, and told us to smoke as 
much as we pleased, it couldn’t get under the canopy, 
and she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the 
land who had ever seen a cloud blown. Well, there 
couldn’t be a more contented or comfortable sight 
than Sir Launcelot in his noble armor sitting in gracious 
serenity at the end of a yard of snowy church-warden. 
He was a beautiful man, a lovely man, and was just 
intended to make a wife and children happy. But, of 
course Guenever — however, it’s no use to cry over 
what’s done and can’t be helped. 

Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right 
straight through, for three days and nights, till the 
child was out of danger; then he took her up in his 
great arms and kissed her, with his plumes falling 
about her golden head, then laid her softly in Sandy’s 
lap again and took his stately way down the vast hall, 
between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and menials, 
and so disappeared. And no instinct warned me that 
I should never look upon him again in this world! 
Lord, what a world of heart-break it is. 

The doctors said we must take the child away, if we 
would coax her back to health and strength again. 
And she must have sea-air. So we took a man-of- 
war, and a suite of two hundred and sixty persons, and 
went cruising about, and after a fortnight of this we 
stepped ashore on the French coast, and the doctors 
thought it would be a good idea to make something of 
a stay there. The little king of that region offered us 
his hospitalities, and we were glad to accept. If he 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 367 


had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we should 
have been plenty comfortable enough; even as it was, 
we made out very well, in his queer old castle, by the 
help of comforts and luxuries from the ship. 

At the end of a month I sent the vessel home for 
fresh supplies, and for news. We expected her back 
in three or four days. She would bring me, along 
with other news, the result of a certain experiment 
which I had been starting. It was a project of mine 
to replace the tournament with something which might 
furnish an escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, 
keep those bucks entertained and out of mischief, and 
at the same time preserve the best thing in them, 
which was their hardy spirit of emulation. I had had 
a choice band of them in private training for some time, 
and the date was now arriving for their first public 
effort. 

This experiment was baseball. In order to give the 
thing vogue from the start, and place it out of the 
reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not 
capacity. There wasn’t a knight in either team who 
wasn’t a sceptred sovereign. As for material of this 
sort, there was a glut of it always around Arthur. 
You couldn’t throw a brick in any direction and not 
cripple a king. Of course, I couldn’t get these people 
to leave off their armor; they wouldn’t do that when 
they bathed. They consented to differentiate the armor 
so that a body could tell one team from the other, but 
that was the most they would do. So, one of the 
teams wore chain-mail ulsters, and the other wore plate- 
armor made of my new Bessemer steel. Their prac- 
tice in the field was the most fantastic thing I ever saw. 
Being ball-proof, they never skipped out of the way, 
but stood still and took the result; when a Bessemer 
was at the bat and a ball hit him, it would bound a 
hundred and fifty yards sometimes. And when a man 


368 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


was running, and threw himself on his stomach to slide 
to his base, it was like an iron-clad coming into port. 
At first I appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, 
but I had to discontinue that. These people were no 
easier to please than other nines. The umpire’s first 
decision was usually his last; they broke him in two 
with a bat, and his friends toted him home on a 
shutter. When it was noticed that no umpire ever 
survived a game, umpiring got to be unpopular. So 
I was obliged to appoint somebody whose rank and 
lofty position under the government would protect 
him. 
Here are the names of the nines: 


BESSEMERS ULSTERS 
KinG ARTHUR. EMPEROR LUCIUS. 
Kinc Lot or LOTHIAN, kinGc Loeris. 
KING OF NORTHGALIS, KinG MARHALT OF IRELAND, 
KING MARSIL. KING MORGANORE. 
KING OF LITTLE BRITAIN. KING MARK OF CORNWALL. 
KING LABOR. KinG NENTRES OF GARLOT. 
KING PELLAM OF LISTENGESE, KiInG MELIODAS OF LIONES. 
KiInG BAGDEMAGUS. KING OF THE LAKE. 
KinGc TOLLEME LA FEINTES. THE SOWDAN OF SYRIA, 


Umpire — CLARENCE. 


The first public game would certainly draw fifty 
thousand people; and for solid fun would be worth 
going around the world to see. Everything would be 
favorable; it was balmy and beautiful spring weather 
now, and Nature was all tailored out in her new clothes. 


CHAPTER XLI. 


THE INTERDICT 


OWEVER, my attention was suddenly snatched 
from such matters; our child began to lose 
eround again, and we had to go to sitting up with her, 
her case became so serious. We couldn’t bear to 
allow anybody to help in this service, so we two stood 
watch-and-watch, day in and day out. Ah, Sandy, 
what a right heart she had, how simple, and genuine, 
and good she was! She was a flawless wife and 
mother; and yet I had married her for no other par- 
ticular reasons, except that by the customs of chivalry 
she was my property until some knight should win her 
from me in the field She had hunted Britain over for 
me; had found me at the hanging-bout outside of 
London, and had straightway resumed her old place at 
my side in the placidest way and as of right. Iwasa 
New Englander, and in my opinion this sort of partner- 
ship would compromise her, sooner or later. She 
couldn’t see how, but I cut argument short and we 
had a wedding. 

Now I didn’t know I was drawing a prize, yet that 
was what I did draw. Within the twelvemonth I be- 
came her worshiper; and ours was the dearest and 
perfectest comradeship that ever was. People talk 
about beautiful friendships between two persons of the 
same sex. What is the best of that sort, as compared 
with the friendship of man and wife, where the best 

24 { 369) 


370 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? 
There is no place for comparison between the two 
friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine. 

In my dreams, along at first, I still wandered thirteen 
centuries away, and my unsatisfied spirit went calling 
and harking all up and down the unreplying vacancies 
of a vanished world. Many a time Sandy heard that 
imploring cry come from my lips in my sleep. With 
a grand magnanimity she saddled that cry of mine 
upon our child, conceiving it to be the name of some 
lost darling of mine. It touched me to tears, and it 
also nearly knocked me off my feet, too, when she 
smiled up in my face for an earned reward, and played 
her quaint and pretty surprise upon me: 

‘*The name of one who was dear to thee is here 
preserved, here made holy, and the music of it will 
abide alway in our ears. Now thou’lt kiss me, as 
knowing the name I have given the child.’’ 

But I didn’t know it, all the same. I hadn’t an 
idea in the world; but it would have been cruel to 
confess it and spoil her pretty game; so I never let on, 
but said: 

‘* Yes, I know, sweetheart — how dear and good it 
is of you, too! But I want to hear these lips of yours, 
which are also mine, utter it first— then its music will 
be perfect.’’ 

Pleased to the marrow, she murmured: 

** HELLO-CENTRAL!”’ 

I didn’t laugh —I am always thankful for that — but 
the strain ruptured every cartilage in me, and for weeks 
afterward I could hear my bones clack when I walked. 
She never found out her mistake. The first time she 
heard that form of salute used at the telephone she was 
surprised, and not pleased; but I told her I had given 
order for it: that henceforth and forever the tele- 
phone must always be invoked with that reverent for- 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 371 


mality, in perpetual honor and remembrance of my 
lost friend and her small namesake. This was not 
true. But it answered. 

Well, during two weeks and a half we watched by 
the crib, and in our deep solicitude we were uncon- 
scious of any world outside of that sick-room. Then 
our reward came: the center of the universe turned the 
corner and began to mend. Grateful? It isn’t the 
term. There zsz’¢ any term for it. You know that 
yourself, if you’ve watched your child through the 
Valley of the Shadow and seen it come back to life 
and sweep night out of the earth with one all-illumi- 
nating smile that you could cover with your hand. 

Why, we were back in this world in one instant! 
Then we looked the same startled thought into each 
other’s eyes at the same moment; more than two 
weeks gone, and that ship not back yet! 

In another minute I appeared in the presence of my 
train. They had been steeped in troubled bodings all 
this time —their faces showed it. I called an escort 
and we galloped five mies to a hilltop overlooking the 
sea. Where was my great commerce that so lately 
had made these glistening expanses populous and 
beautiful with its white-winged flocks? Vanished, 
every one! Not a sail, from verge to verge, not a 
smoke-bank — just a dead and empty solitude, in place 
of all that brisk and breezy life. 

I went swiftly back, saying not a word to anybody. 
I told Sandy this ghastly news. We could imagine no 
explanation that would begin to explain. Had there 
been an invasion? an earthquake? a pestilence? Had 
the nation been swept out of existence? But guessing 
was profitless. I must go—atonce. I borrowed the 
king’s navy—a “‘ship’’ no bigger than a steam 
launch — and was soon ready. 

The parting—ah, yes, that was hard. As I was 

x 


372 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


devouring the child with last kisses, it brisked up and 
jabbered out its vocabulary !—the first time in more 
than two wecks, and it made fools of us for joy. The 
darling mispronunciations of childhood!—dear me, 
there’s no music that can touch it; and how one 
erieves when it wastes away and dissolves into correct- 
ness, knowing it will never visit his bereaved ear again. 
Well, how good it was to be able to carry that gracious 
memory away with me! , 

I approached England the next morning, with the 
wide highway of salt water all to myself. There were 
ships in the harbor, at Dover, but they were naked as 
to sails, and there was no sign of life about them. It 
was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets were 
empty; strangest of all, there was not even a priest 
in sight, and no stroke of a bell fell upon my ear. 
The mournfulness of death was everywhere. I couldn’t 
understand it. At last, in the further edge of that 
town I saw a small funeral procession — just a family 
and a few friends following a coffin—no priest; a 
funeral without bell, book, or candle; there was a 
church there close at hand, but they passed it by 
weeping, and did not enter it; I glanced up at the 
belfry, and there hung the bell, shrouded in black, 
and its tongue tied back. Now I knew! Now I 
understood the stupendous calamity that had overtaken 
England. Invasion? Invasion is a triviality to it. It 
was the INTERDICT! 

I asked no questions; I didn’t need to ask any. 
The Church had struck; the thing for me to do was 
to get into a disguise, and go warily. One of my 
servants gave mea suit of clothes, and when we were 
safe beyond the town I put them on, and from that 
time I traveled alone; I could not risk the embarrass- 
ment of company. 

A miserable journey. A desolate silence everywhere. 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 375 


Even in London itself. Traffic had ceased; men did 
not talk or laugh, or go in groups, or even in couples; 
they moved aimlessly about, each man by himself, 
with his head down, and woe and terror at his heart. 
The Tower showed recent war-scars. Verily, much 
had been happening. 

Of course, I meant to take the train for Camelot. 
Train! Why, the station was as vacant as a cavern. 
I moved on. The journey to Camelot was a repetition 
of what I had already seen. The Monday and the 
Tuesday differed in no way from the Sunday. I 
arrived far in the night. From being the best electric- 
lighted town in the kingdom and the most like a 
recumbent sun of anything you ever saw, it was be- 
come simply a blot—a blot upon darkness — that is 
to say, it was darker and solider than the rest of the 
darkness, and so you could see it a little better; it 
made me feel as if maybe it was symbolical —a sort of 
sign that the Church was going to keep the upper hand 
now, and snuff out all my beautiful civilization just like 
that. I found no life stirring in the somber streets. I 
groped my way with a heavy heart. The vast castle 
loomed black upon the hilltop, not a spark visible 
about it. The drawbridge was down, the great gate 
stood wide, I entered without challenge, my own heels 
making the only sound I heard — and it was sepulchral 
enough, in those huge vacant courts. 


CHAPTER XLII. 


WAR! 


FOUND Clarence alone in his quarters, drowned in 
melancholy; and in place of the electric light, he 
had reinstituted the ancient rag-lamp, and sat there in 
a grisly twilight with all curtains drawn tight. He 
sprang up and rushed for me eagerly, saying: 

** Oh, it’s worth a billion milrays to look upon a 
live person again!”’ 

He knew me as easily as if I hadn’t been disguised 
at all. Which frightened me; one may easily believe 
that. 

** Quick, now, tell me the meaning of this fearful 
disaster,’’ I said. ‘*‘ How did it come about?’’ 

‘‘ Well, if there hadn’t been any Queen Guenever, it 
wouldn’t have come so early; but it would have come, 
anyway. It would have come on your own account 
by and by; by luck, it happened to come on the 
queen’s.”’ 

‘** And Sir Launcelot’s?’’ 

** Just so.”’ 

‘* Give me the details.’’ 

**T reckon you will grant that during some years 
there has been only one pair of eyes in these kingdoms 
that has not been looking steadily askance at the queen 
and Sir Launcelot —’’ 

** Yes, King Arthur’s.’’ 


(374) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 375 


**_ and only one heart that was without suspicion —”' 

**Yes—the king’s; a heart that isn’t capable of 
thinking evil of a friend.’’ 

‘* Well, the king might have gone on, still happy 
and unsuspecting, to the end of his days, but for one 
of your modern improvements—the _ stock-board. 
When you left, three miles of the London, Canterbury 
and Dover were ready for the rails, and also ready and 
ripe for manipulation in the stock-market. It was 
wildcat, and everybody knew it. The stock was for 
sale at a give-away. What does Sir Launcelot do, 
but —”’ 

““Yes, I know; he quietly picked up nearly all of it 
for a song; then he bought about twice as much more, 
deliverable upon call; and he was about to call when I 
lefts"? 

**Very well, he did call. The boys couldn’t de- 
liver. Oh, he had them—and he just settled his grip 
and squeezed them. They were laughing in their 
sleeves over their smartness in selling stock to him at . 
15 and 16 and along there that wasn’t worth Io. 
Well, when they had laughed long enough on that 
side of their mouths, they rested-up that side by shift- 
ing the laugh to the other side. That was when they 
compromised with the Invincible at 283 !’’ 

** Good land !’’ 

**He skinned them alive, and they deserved it— 
anyway, the whole kingdom rejoiced. Well, among 
the flayed were Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred, 
nephews to the king. End of the first act. Act 
second, scene first, an apartment in Carlisle castle, 
where the court had gone for a few days’ hunting. 
Persons present, the whole tribe of the king’s nephews. 
Mordred and Agravaine propose to call the guileless 
Arthur’s attention to Guenever and Sir Launcelot. Sir 
Gawaine, Sir Gareth, and Sir Gaheris will have nothing 


376 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


to do with it. A dispute ensues, with loud talk; in 
the midst of it enter the king. Mordred and Agravaine 
spring their devastating tale upon him. Tableau. A 
trap is laid for Launcelot, by the king’s command, and 
Sir Launcelot walks into it. He made it sufficiently 
uncomfortable for the ambushed witnesses —to wit, 
Mordred, Agravaine, and twelve knights of lesser rank, 
for he killed every one of them but Mordred; but of 
course that couldn’t straighten matters between Launce- 
lot and the king, and didn’t.’’ 

** Oh, dear, only one thing could result —I see that. 
War, and the knights of the realm divided into a king’s 
party and a Sir Launcelot’s party.’’ 

** Yes — that was the way of it. The king sent the 
queen to the stake, proposing to purify her with fire. 
Launcelot and his knights rescued her, and in doing it 
slew certain good old friends of yours and mine— in 
fact, some of the best we ever had; to wit, Sir Belias le 
Orgulous, Sir Segwarides, Sir Griflet le Fils de ery 
Sir Brandiles, Sir Aglovale —’’ 

‘* Oh, you tear out my heartstrings.’’ 

‘‘__ wait, I’m not done yet—Sir Tor, Sir Gauter, 
Sir Gillimer —’’ 

‘*The very best man in my subordinate nine. 
What a handy right-fielder he was !’’ 

‘‘__ Sir Reynoid’s three brothers, Sir Damus, Sir 
Priamus, Sir Kay the Stranger —’’ 

‘*My peerless short-stop! I’ve seen him catch a 
daisy-cutter in his teeth. Come, I can’t stand this!’’ 

‘‘_Sir Driant, Sir Lambegus, Sir Herminde, Sir 
Pertilope, Sir Perimones, and — whom do you think?’’ 

‘Rush! Go on.’’ 

** Sir Gaheris, and Sir Gareth — both!’’ 

‘Oh, incredible! Their love for Launcelot was in- 
destructible.’ 

‘* Well, it was an accident. They were simply on- 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 377 


lookers; they were unarmed, and were merely there to 
witness the queen’s punishment. Sir Launcelot smote 
down whoever came in the way of his blind fury, and 
he killed these without noticing who they were. Here 
is an instantaneous photograph one of our boys got of 
the battle; it’s for sale on every news-stand. There 
—the figures nearest the queen are Sir Launcelot with 
his sword up, and Sir Gareth gasping his latest breath. 
You can catch the agony in the queen’s face through 
the curling smoke. It’s a rattling battle-picture.’’ 

‘““ Indeed, itis. We must take good care of it; its 
historical value is incalculable. Go on.”’ 

“Well, the rest of the tale is just war, pure and 
simple. Launcelot retreated to his town and castle of 
Joyous Gard, and gathered there a great following of 
knights. The king, with a great host, went there, and 
there was desperate fighting during several days, and, 
as a result, all the plain around was paved with corpses 
and cast-iron. Then the Church patched up a peace 
between Arthur and Launcelot and the queen and 
everybody — everybody but Sir Gawaine. He was 
bitter about the slaying of his brothers, Gareth and 
Gaheris, and would not be appeased. He notified 
Launcelot to get him thence, and make swift prepara- 
tion, and look to be soon attacked. So Launcelot 
sailed to his Duchy of Guienne with his following, and 
Gawaine soon followed with an army, and he beguiled 
Arthur to go with him. Arthur left the kingdom in 
Sir Mordred’s hands until you should return —’’ 

‘* Ah—a king’s customary wisdom !’’ 

‘*Yes. Sir Mordred set himself at once to work te 
make his kingship permanent. He was going to marry 
Guenever, as a first move; but she fled and shut her- 
self up in the Tower of London. Mordred attacked; 
the Bishop of Canterbury dropped down on him with 
the Interdict. The king returned; Mordred fought 


378 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


him at Dover, at Canterbury, and again at Barham 
Down. Then there was talk of peace and a composi- 
tion. Terms, Mordred to have Cornwall and Kent 
during Arthur’s life, and the whole kingdom after- 
ward,”’ 

‘* Well, upon my word! My dream of a republic to 
de a dream, and so remain.’’ 

‘Yes. The two armies lay near Salisbury. Ga- 
waine — Gawaine’s head is at Dover Castle, he fell in 
the fight there—Gawaine appeared to Arthur in a 
dream, at least his ghost did, and warned him to re- 
frain from conflict for a month, let the delay cost what 
it might. But battle was precipitated by an accident. 
Arthur had given order that if a sword was raised 
during the consultation over the proposed treaty with 
Mordred, sound the trumpet and fall on! for he had 
no confidence in Mordred. Mordred had given a 
similar order to zs people. Well, by and by an 
adder bit a knight’s heel; the knight forgot all about 
the order, and made a slash at the adder with his 
sword. Inside of half a minute those two prodigious 
hosts came together with a crash! They butchered 
away all day. Then the king—however, we have 
started something fresh since you left—our paper 
has.”’ 

‘*No? What is that?’’ 

** War correspondence !’’ 

** Why, that’s good.’’ 

‘Yes, the paper was booming right along, for the 
Interdict made no impression, got no grip, while the 
war lasted. I had war correspondents with both 
armies. I will finish that battle by reading you what 
one of the boys says: 


Then the king looked about him, and then was he ware of all his host 
and of all his good knights were left no more on live but two knights, that 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 379 


was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his brother Sir Bedivere: and they were full 
sore wounded. Jesu mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights 
becomen? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said 
Arthur, Iam come to mine end. But would to Gcd that I wist where were 
that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mischief. Then was 
King Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great 
heap of dead men. Now give me my spear, said Arthur unto Sir Lucan, 
for yonder I have espied the traitor that all this woe hath wrought. Sir, let 
him be, said Sir Lucan, for he is unhappy; andif ye pass this unhappy 
day, ye shall be right well revenged upon him. Good lord, remember ye 
of your night’s dream, and what the spirit of Sir Gawaine told you this 
night, yet God of his great goodness hath preserved you hitherto. There- 
fore, for God’s sake, my lord, leave off by this. For blessed be God ye 
have won the field: for here we be three on live, and with Sir Mordred is 
none on live. And if ye leave off now, this wicked day of destiny is past. 
Tide me death, betide me life, saith the king, now I see him yonder alone, 
he shall never escape mine hands, for at a better avail shall I never have 
him. God speed you well, said Sir Bedivere. Then the king gat his spear 
in both his hands, and ran toward Sir Mordred crying, Traitor, now is thy 
death day come. And when Sir Mordred heard Sir Arthur, he ran until 
him with his sword drawn in his hand. And then King Arthur smote Sir 
Mordred under the shield, with a foin of his spear throughout the body 
more than a fathom. And when Sir Mordred felt that he had his death’s 
wound, he thrust himself, with the might that he had, up to the butt of 
King Arthur’s spear. And right so he smote his father Arthur with his 
sword holden in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the 
sword pierced the helmet and the brain-pan, and therewithal Sir Mordred 
fell stark dead to the earth. And the noble Arthur fell in a swoon to the 
earth, and there he swooned oft-times 


‘“That is a good piece of war correspondence, 
Clarence ; you are a first-rate newspaper man. Well 
—-is the king all right?’’ Did he get well?’’ 

** Poor soul, no. He is dead.’’ 

{ was utterly stunned; it had not seemed to me that 
any wound could be mortal to him. 

**And the queen, Clarence? ’”’ 


** She is a nun, in Almesbury.’”’ 
25 


480 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


** What changes! and in such a short while. It is 
inconceivable. What next, I wonder?’’ 

**T can tell you what next.’’ 

well?’ 

‘** Stake our lives and stand by them!’ 

‘“ What do you mean by that?’’ 

‘“The Church is master now. The Interdict in- 
cluded you with Mordred; it is not to be removed 
while you remain alive. The clans are gathering. The 
Church has gathered all the knights that are left alive, 
and as soon as you are discovered we shall have busi- 
ness on our hands.’’ 

‘* Stuff! With our deadly scientific war-material ; 
with our hosts of trained —’’ 

‘“* Save your breath — we haven’t sixty faithful left!”’ 

‘“ What are you saying? Our schools, our colleges, 
our vast workshops, our —’’ 

‘“When those knights come, those establishments 
will empty themselves and go over to the enemy. Did 
you think you had educated the superstition out of 
those people?’’ 

‘*T certainly did think it.’’ 

“Well, then, you may unthink it. They stood 
every strain easily— until the Interdict. Since then, 
they merely put ona bold outside — at heart they are 
quaking. Make up your mind to it— when the armies 
come, the mask will fall.’’ 

“*It’s hard news. Weare lost. They will turn our 
own science against us.’’ 

** No they won’t.’’ 

46 Why?’ , 

‘*Because I and a handful of the faithful have 
blocked that game. I'll tell you what I’ve done, and 
what moved me to it. Smart as you are, the Church 
was smarter. It was the Church that sent you cruising 
— through her servants, the doctors.’ 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 384 


** Clarence !’’ 

“It is the truth. I know it. Every officer of your 
ship was the Church’s picked servant, and so was every 
man of the crew.”’ 

“Oh, come !”’ 

*“It is just asI tell you. Idid not find out these 
things at once, but I found them out finally. Did you 
send me verbal information, by the commander of the 
ship, to the effect that upon his return to you, with 
supplies, you were going to leave Cadiz —’’ 

** Cadiz! I haven’t been at Cadiz at all!’’ 

“‘—- going to leave Cadiz and cruise in distant seas 
indefinitely, for the health of your family? Did you 
send me that word?’’ 

**Of course not. I would have written, wouldn’t 
ER 

** Naturally. I was troubled and suspicious. When 
the commander sailed again I managed to ship a spy 
with him. Ihave never heard of vessel or spy since. 
I gave myself two weeks to hear from you in. Then I 
resolved to send a ship to Cadiz. There was a reason 
why I didn’t.”’ 

‘* What was that?’’ 

““Our navy had suddenly and mysteriously disap- 
peared! Also, as suddenly and as mysteriously, the 
railway and telegraph and telephone service ceased, 
the men all deserted, poles were cut down, the Church 
laid a ban upon the electric light! I had to be up 
and doing—and straight off. Your life was safe — 
nobody in these kingdoms but Merlin would venture to 
touch such a magician as you without ten thousand 
men at his back —I had nothing to think of but how 
to put preparations in the best trim against your 
coming. I felt safe myself — nobody would be anxious 
to touch a pet of yours. So this is what I did. From 


our various works I selected all the men—boys I 
25 


382 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


mean —- whose faithfulness under whatsoever pressure 
I could swear to, and I called them together secretly 
and gave them their instructions. There are fifty-two 
of them; none younger than fourteen, and none above 
seventeen years old.’’ 

‘*Why did you select boys?’’ 

‘* Because all the others were born in an atmosphere 
of superstition and reared in it. It is in their blood 
and bones. We imagined we had educated it out of 
them; they thought so, too; the Interdict woke them 
up like a thunderclap! It revealed them to themselves, 
and it revealed them to me, too. With boys it was 
different. Such as have been under our training from 
seven to ten years have had no acquaintance with the 
Church’s terrors, and it was among these that I found 
my fifty-two. As a next move, I paid a private visit 
to that old cave of Merlin’s — not the small one — the 
big one—’’ 

“Ves, the one where we secretly established our first 
great electric plant when I was projecting a miracle.’’ 

‘‘Just so. And as that miracle hadn’t become 
necessary then, I thought it might be a good idea to 
utilize the plant now. I’ve provisioned the cave fora 
siege —’’ 

‘* A good idea, a first-rate idea.’’ 

‘IT think so. I placed four of my boys there as a 
guard — inside, and out of sight. Nobody was to be 
hurt — while outside; but any attempt to enter — well, 
we said just let anybody try it! Then I went out into 
the hills and uncovered and cut the secret wires which 
connected your bedroom with the wires that go to the 
dynamite deposits under ail our vast factories, mills, 
workshops, magazines, etc., and about midnight I and 
my boys turned out and connected that wire with the 
cave, and nobody but you and I suspects where the 
other end of it goes to. We laid it under ground, of 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 385 


course, and it was all finished in a couple of hours o: 
so. We sha’n’t have to leave our fortress now when 
we want to blow up our civilization.’’ 

““Tt was the right move—and the natural one; 4 
military necessity, in the changed condition of things. 
Well, what changes “ave come! We expected to be 
besieged in the palace some time or other, but — how- 
ever, go on.”’ 

** Next, we built a wire fence.’’ 

** Wire fence?’’ 

““Yes. You dropped the hint of it yourself, two or 
three years ago.”’ 

** Oh, I remember — the time the Church tried her 
strength against us the first time, and presently thought 
it wise to wait for a hopefuler season. Well, how have 
you arranged the fence?’’ 

**T start twelve immensely strong wires — naked, not 
insulated — from a big dynamo in the cave—dynamo 
with no brushes except a positive and a negative one —’’ 

“* Yes, that’s right.’’ 

*“ The wires go out from the cave and fence in a 
circle of level ground a hundred yards in diameter; 
they make twelve independent fences, ten feet apart — 
that is to say, twelve circles within circles— and their 
ends come into the cave again.”’ 

** Right; go on.”’ 

** The fences are fastened to heavy oaken posts only 
three feet apart, and these posts are sunk five feet in 
the ground.’’ 

** That is good and strong.’’ 

‘Yes. The wires have no ground-connection out. 
side of the cave. They go out from the positive brush 
of the dynamo; there is a ground-connection through 
the negative brush; the other ends of the wire return 
to the cave, and each is grounded independently.’”’ 

**No-no, that won’t do!’’ 


$84 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


«6 Why ?”’ 

**It’s too expensive—uses up force for nothing. 
You don’t want any ground-connection except the one 
through the negative brush. The other end of every 
wire must be brought back into the cave and fastened 
independently, and wzthout any ground-connection. 
Now, then, observe the economy of it. A cavalry 
charge hurls itself against the fence; you are using no 
power, you are spending no money, for there is only 
one ground-connection till those horses come against 
the wire; the moment they touch it they form a con- 
nection with the negative brush ¢hrough the ground, 
and drop dead. Don’t you see?—you are using no 
energy until it is needed; your lightning is there, and 
ready, like the load ina gun; but it isn’t costing you 
a cent till you touch it off. Oh, yes, the single 
ground-connection —’’ 

‘“Of course! I don’t know how I overlooked that. 
It’s not only cheaper, but it’s more effectual than the 
other way, for if wires break or get tangled, no harm 
is done.”’ 

‘* No, especially if we have a tell-tale in the cave 
and disconnect the broken wire. Well, goon. The 
gatlings?’’ 

‘“Yes— that’s arranged. In the center of the inner 
circle, on a spacious platform six feet high, I’ve 
grouped a battery of thirteen gatling guns, and pro- 
vided plenty of ammunition.’’ 

‘*That’s it. They command every approach, and 
when the Church’s knights arrive, there’s going to be 
music. The brow of the precipice over the cave —”’ 

**T’ve got a wire fence there, and a gatling. They 
won’t drop any rocks down on us,”’ 

** Well, and the glass-cylinder dynamite torpedoes?’’ 

** That’s attended to. It’s the prettiest garden that 
was ever planted. It’s a belt forty feet wide, and goes 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 385 


around the outer fence— distance between it and the 
fence one hundred yards — kind of neutral ground that 
space is. There isn’t a single square yard of that 
whole belt but is equipped with a torpedo. We laid 
them on the surface of the ground, and sprinkled a 
layer of sand over them. It’s an innocent looking 
garden, but you let a man start in to hoe it once, and 
you'll see.”’ 

** You tested the torpedoes?’’ 

*‘ Well, I was going to, but—’’ 

**But what? Why, it’s an immense oversight not 
to apply a—”’ 

*“Test? Yes, I know; but they’re all right; I laid 
a few in the public road beyond our lines and they’ve 
been tested.’’ 

** Oh, that alters the case. Who did it?’’ 

** A Church committee.’’ 

** How kind!’’ 

*“Yes. They came to command us to make submis- 
sion. You see they didn’t really come to test the 
torpedoes; that was merely an incident.”’ 

**Did the committee make a report?’’ 

**Yes, they made one. You could have heard it a 
mile,”’ 

**Unanimous?’’ 

** That was the nature of it. After that I put up 
some signs, for the protection of future committees, 
and we have had no intruders since.’”’ 

‘* Clarence, you’ve done a world of work, and done 
it perfectly.’’ 

‘“We had plenty of time for it; there wasn’t any 
occasion for hurry.’’ 

We sat silent awhile, thinking. Then my mind was 
made up, and I said: 

**'Yes, everything is ready; everything is shipshape, 
no detail is wanting. I know what to do now.”’ 

25 


$86 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


*©So do I; sit down and wait.’’ 

** No, sev / rise up and strike J’? 

**Do you mean it?’’ 

““ Yes, indeed! The defensive isn’t in my line, and 
the offensive is. That is, when I hold a fair hand— 
two-thirds as good a hand as the enemy. Oh, yes, 
we'll rise up and strike; that’s our game.’’ 

**A hundred to one you are right. When does the 
performance begin?”’ 

** Now / We'll proclaim the Republic.”’ 

“Well, that w2// precipitate things, sure enough!”’ 

**Tt will make them buzz, / tell you! England will 
be a hornets’ nest before noon to-morrow, if the 
Church’s hand hasn’t lost its cunning —and we know 
it hasn’t. Now you write and I’ll dictate thus: 


** PROCLAMATION 





‘*BE IT KNOWN UNTO ALL. Whereas the king having died and 
left no heir, it becomes my duty to continue the executive authority vested 
in me, until a government shall have been created and set in motion. The 
monarchy has lapsed, it no longer exists. By consequence, all political 
power has reverted to its original source, the people of the nation. With 
the monarchy, its several adjuncts died also; wherefore there is no longer a 
nobility, no longer a privileged class, no longer an Established Church; all 
men are become exactly equal; they are upon one common level, and 
religion is free. A Republic is hereby proclaimed, as being the natural 
estate of a nation when other authority has ceased. It is the duty of the 
British people to meet together immediately, and by their votes elect repre- 
sentatives and deliver into their hands the government.”? 


I signed it ‘‘ The Boss,’’ and dated it from Merlin’s 
Cave. Clarence said: 

** Why, that tells where we are, and invites them to 
call right away.’’ 

‘*That is the idea. We strike—by the Proclama- 
tion—then it’s their innings. Now have the thing set 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 387 


up and printed and posted, right off; that is, give the 
order; then, if you’ve got a couple of bicycles handy 
at the foot of the hill, ho for Merlin’s Cave!’’ 

**T shall be ready in ten minutes. What a cyclone 
there is. going to be to-morrow when this piece of 
paper gets to work!...... It’s a pleasant old palace, 
this is; I wonder if we shall ever again— but never 
mind about that °' 


CHAPTER XLII. 


THE BATTLE OF THE SAND-BELT 


N Merlin’s Cave—Clarence and I and fifty-two 
fresh, bright, well-educated, clean-minded young 
British boys. At dawn I sent an order to the factories 
and to all our great works to stop operations and re- 
move all life to a safe distance, as everything was 
going to be blown up by secret mines, ‘‘ azd no telling 
at what moment— therefore, vacate at once.’’ These 
people knew me, and had confidence in my word. 
They would clear out without waiting to part their 
hair, and I could take my own time about dating the 
explosion. You couldn’t hire one of them to go back 
during the century, if the explosion was still impending. 
We had a week of waiting. It was not dull for me, 
because I was writing all the time. During the first 
three days, I finished turning my old diary into this 
narrative form; it only required a chapter or so to 
bring it down to date. The rest of the week I took up 
in writing letters to my wife. It was always my habit 
to write to Sandy every day, whenever we were 
separate, and now I kept up the habit for love of it, 
and of her, though I couldn’t do anything with the 
letters, of course, after I had written them. But it 
put in the time, you see; and was almost like talking; 
it was almost as if I was saying, ** Sandy, if you and 
Hello-Central were here in the cave, instead of only 


(388 ) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 389 


your photographs, what good times we could have!’’ 
And then, you know, I could imagine the baby goo- 
gooing something out in reply, with its fists in its 
mouth and itself stretched across its mother’s lap on 
its back, and she a-laughing and admiring and worship- 
ing, and now and then tickling under the baby’s chin 
to set it cackling, and then maybe throwing in a word 
of answer to me herself — and so on and so on — well, 
don’t you know, I could sit there in the cave with my 
pen, and keep it up, that way, by the hour with them. 
Why, it was almost like having us all together again. 

I had spies out every night, of course, to get news. 
Every report made things look more and more im: 
pressive. The hosts were gathering, gathering; down 
all the roads and paths of England the knights were 
riding, and priests rode with them, to hearten these 
original Crusaders, this being the Church’s war. All 
the nobilities, big and little, were on their way, and all 
the gentry. This was all as was expected. We should 
thin out this sort of folk to sucha degree that the 
people would have nothing to do but just step to the 
front with their republic and — 

Ah, what a donkey I was! Toward the end of the 
week I began to get this large and disenchanting fact 
through my head: that the mass of the nation had 
swung their caps and shouted for the republic for 
about one day, and there an end! The Church, the 
nobles, and the gentry then turned one grand, all- 
disapproving frown upon them and shriveled them 
into sheep! From that moment the sheep had begun 
to gather to the fold — that is to say, the camps — and 
offer their valueless lives and their valuable wool to the 
‘‘righteous cause.’” Why, even the very men who 
had lately been slaves were in the ‘‘ righteous cause,’’ 
and glorifying it, praying for it, sentimentally slabber- 
ing over it, just like all the other commoners. Im- 


390 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


agine such human muck as this; conceive of this 
folly! 

Yes, it was now ‘‘ Death to the Republic!’’ every- 
where— not a dissenting voice. All England was 
marching against us! Truly, this was more than I had 
bargained for. 

I watched my fifty-two boys narrowly; watched their 
faces, their walk, their unconscious attitudes: for all 
these are a language—a language given us purposely 
that it may betray us in times of emergency, when we 
have secrets which we want to keep. I knew that that 
thought would keep saying itself over and over again 
in their minds and hearts, d// Eugland is marching 
against us / and ever more strenuously imploring atten- 
tion with each repetition, ever more sharply realizing 
itself to their imaginations, until even in their sleep 
they would find no rest from it, but hear the vague 
and flitting creatures of the dreams say, AM Eng- 
land — ALL ENGLAND !—7s marching against you! I 
knew all this would happen; I knew that ultimately 
the pressure would become so great that it would 
compel utterance; therefore, I must be ready with an 
answer at that time — an answer well chosen and tran- 
quilizing. 

I was right. The time came. They sad to speak. 
Poor lads, it was pitiful to see, they were so pale, so 
worn, so troubled. At first their spokesman could 
hardly find voice or words; but he presently got both. 
This is what he said — and he put it in the neat modern 
English taught him in my schools: 

‘“We have tried to forget what we are-— English 
boys! We have tried to put reason before sentiment, 
duty before love; our minds approve, but our hearts 
reproach us. While apparently it was only the nobility, 
only the gentry, only the twenty-five or thirty thousand 
knights left alive out of the late wars, we were of one 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 391 


mind, and undisturbed by any troubling doubt; each 
and every one of these fifty-two lads who stand here 
before you, said, ‘They have chosen—it is their 
affair.’ But think!—the matter is altered — al/ Eng- 
land 1s marching against us! Oh, sir, consider ! — 
reflect! —these people are our people, they are bone 
of our bone, flesh of our flesh, we love them — do not 
ask us to destroy our nation!’’ 

Well, it shows the value of looking ahead, and being 
ready for a thing when it happens. If I hadn’t fore- 
seen this thing and been fixed, that boy would have 
had me! —I couldn't have said a word. But I was 
fixed. I said: 

** My boys, your hearts are in the right place, you 
have thought the worthy thought, you have done the 
worthy thing. You are English boys, you will remain 
English boys, and you will keep that name unsmirched. 
Give yourselves no further concern, let your minds be 
at peace. Consider this: while all England zs march- 
ing against us, who is in the van? Who, by the com- 
monest rules of war, will march in the front? Answer 
me.’’ 

** The mounted host of mailed knights.’’ 

*“True. They are 30,000 strong. Acres deep they 
will march. Now, observe: none but ¢hey will ever 
strike the sand-belt! Then there will be an episode! 
Immediately after, the civilian multitude in the rear 
will retire, to meet business engagements elsewhere. 
None but nobles and gentry are knights, and zone but 
these will remain to dance to our music after that epi- 
sode. It is absolutely true that we shall have to fight 
nobody but these thirty thousand knights. Now speak, 
and it shall be as you decide. Shall we avoid the 
battle, retire from the field?’’ 

““NO!!!? 

The shout was unanimous and hearty. 


392 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


‘* Are you—are you —well, afraid of these thirty 
thousand knights ?’’ 

That joke brought out a good laugh, the boys’ 
troubles vanished away, and they went gaily to their 
posts. Ah, they were a darling fifty-two! As pretty 
as girls, too. 

I was ready for the enemy now. Let the approach- 
ing big day come along — it would find us on deck. 

The big day arrived on time. At dawn the sentry 
on watch in the corral came into the cave and reported 
a moving black mass under the horizon, and a faint 
sound which he thought to be military music. Break- 
fast was just ready; we sat down and ate it. 

This over, I made the boys a little speech, and then 
sent out a detail to man the battery, with Clarence in 
command of it. 

The sun rose presently and sent its unobstructed 
splendors over the land, and we saw a prodigious host 
moving slowly toward us, with the steady drift and 
aligned front of a wave of the sea. Nearer and nearer 
it came, and more and more sublimely imposing be- 
came its aspect; yes, all England was there, appar- 
ently. Soon we could see the innumerable banners 
fluttering, and then the sun struck the sea of armor 
and set it all aflash. Yes, it was a fine sight; I hadn’t 
ever seen anything to beat it. 

At last we could make out details. All the front 
ranks, no telling how many acres deep, were horse- 
men— plumed knights in armor. Suddenly we heard 
the blare of trumpets; the slow walk burst into a 
gallop, and then—vwell, it was wonderful to see! 
Down swept that vast horse-shoe wave — it approached 
the sand-belt — my breath stood still; nearer, nearer — 
the strip of green turf beyond the yellow belt grew 
narrow — narrower still— became a mere ribbon in 
front of the horses—then disappeared under their 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 393 


hoofs. Great Scott! Why, the whole front of that 
host shot into the sky with a thunder-crash, and be- 
came a whirling tempest of rags and fragments; and 
along the ground lay a thick wall of smoke that hid 
what was left of the multitude from our sight. 

Time for the second step in the plan of campaign! 
I touched a button, and shook the bones of England 
loose from her spine! 

In that explosion all our noble civilization-factories 
went up in the air and disappeared from the earth. It 
was a pity, but it was necessary. We could not afford 
to let the enemy turn our own weapons against us. 

Now ensued one of the dullest quarter-hours I had 
ever endured. We waited in a silent solitude enclosed 
by our circles of wire, and by a circle of heavy smoke 
outside of these. We couldn’t see over the wall of 
smoke, and we couldn’t see through it. But at last it 
began to shred away lazily, and by the end of another 
auarter-hour the land was clear and our curiosity was 
enabled to satisfy itself. No living creature was in 
sight! We now perceived that additions had been 
made to our defenses. The dynamite had dug a ditch 
more than a hundred feet wide, all around us, and cast 
up an embankment some twenty-five feet high on both 
borders of it. As to destruction of life, it was amazing. 
Moreover, it was beyond estimate. Of course, we 
could not count the dead, because they did not exist 
as individuals, but merely as homogeneous protoplasm, 
with alloys of iron and buttons. 

No life was in sight, but necessarily there must have 
been some wounded in the rear ranks, who were carried 
off the field under cover of the wall of smoke; there 
would be sickness among the others — there always is, 
after an episode like that. But there would be no 
reinforcements; this was the last stand of the chivalry 
of England; it was all that was left of the order, after 


394 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


the recent annihilating wars. So I felt quite safe in 
believing that the utmost force that could for the future 
be brought against us would be but small; that is, of 
knights. I therefore issued a congratulatory proclama- 
tion to my army in these words: 


SOLDIERS, CHAMPIONS OF HUMAN LIBERTY AND EQUALITY: Your 
General congratulates you! In the pride of his strength and the vanity of 
his renown, an arrogant enemy came against you. You were ready. The 
conflict was brief; on your side, glorious. This mighty victory, having been 
achieved utterly without loss, stands without example in history. So long 
as the planets shall continue to move in their orbits, the BATTLE OF THE 


SAND-BELT will not perish out of the memories of men. 
THE BOSS. 


I read it well, and the applause I got was very grati- 
fying to me. I then wound up with these remarks: 

‘* The war with the English nation, as a nation, is at 
anend. The nation has retired from the field and the 
war. Before it can be persuaded to return, war will 
have ceased. This campaign is the only one that is 
going to be fought. It will be brief — the briefest in 
history. Also the most destructive to life, considered 
from the standpoint of proportion of casualties to 
numbers engaged. We are done with the nation; 
henceforth we deal only with the knights. English 
knights can be killed, but they cannot be conquered. 
We know what is before us. While one of these men 
remains alive, our task is not finished, the war is not 
ended. We will kill them all.’’ [Loud and long con- 
tinued applause. | 

I picketed the great embankments thrown up around 
our lines by the dynamite explosion— merely a look- 
out of a couple of boys to announce the enemy when 
he should appear again. 

Next, I sent an engineer and forty men to a point 
just bevond our lines on the south, to turn a mountain 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 395 


brook that was there, and bring it within our lines and 
under our command, arranging it in such a way that I 
could make instant use of it in an emergency. The 
forty men were divided into two shifts of twenty each, 
and were to relieve each other every two hours. In 
ten hours the work was accomplished. 

It was nightfall now, and I withdrew my pickets. 
The one who had had the northern outlook reported a 
camp in sight, but visible with the glass only. He also 
reported that a few knights had been feeling their way 
toward us, and had driven some cattle across our lines, 
but that the knights themselves had not come very 
near, That was what I had been expecting. They 
were feeling us, you see; they wanted to know if we 
were going to play that red terror on them again. 
They would grow bolder in the night, perhaps. I be- 
lieved I knew what project they would attempt, because 
it was plainly the thing I would attempt myself if I 
were in their places and as ignorant as they were. I 
mentioned it to Clarence. 

**T think you are right,’’ said he; ‘‘ it is the obvious 
thing for them to try.’’ 

‘Well, then,’’ I said, ‘‘if they do it they are 
doomed.’’ 

** Certainly.’’ 

** They won’t have the slightest show in the world.’’ 

** Of course they won’t.’’ 

**Tt’s dreadful, Clarence. It seems an awful pity.’’ 

The thing disturbed me so that I couldn’t get any 
peace of mind for thinking of it and worrying over it. 
So, at last, to quiet my conscience, I framed this 
message to the knights: 


To THE HONORABLE THE COMMANDER OF THE INSURGENT CHIVALRY 
OF ENGLAND: You fight in vain. We know your strength—if one may 
call it by that name. We know that at the utmost you cannot bring against 


us above five and twenty thousand knights. Therefore, you have no chance 
26 


306 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


—none whatever. Reflect: we are well equipped, well fortified, we nume 
ber 54. Fifty-fourwhat? Men? No, #zxds—the capablest in the world; 
a force against which mere animal might may no more hope to prevail than 
may the idle waves of the sea hope to prevail against the granite barriers of 
England. Be advised. We offer you your lives; for the sake of your fam- 
ilies, do not reject the gift. We offer you this chance, and it is the last: 
throw down your arms; surrender unconditionally to the Republic, and all 


will be forgiven. 
(Signed) THE Boss, 


I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it 
by a flag of truce. He laughed the sarcastic laugh he 
was born with, and said: 

‘* Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully 
realize what these nobilities are. Now let us savea 
little time and trouble. Consider me the commander 
of the knights yonder. Now, then, you are the flag 
of truce; approach and deliver me your message, and 
I will give you your answer.’’ 

I humored the idea. I came forward under an 
imaginary guard of the enemy’s soldiers, produced my 
paper, and read it through. For answer, Clarence 
struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scorn- 
ful lip and said with lofty disdain: 

‘Dismember me this animal, and return him ina 
basket to the base-born knave who sent him; other 
answer have I none!’’ 

How empty is theory in presence of fact! And this 
was just fact, and nothing else. It was the thing that 
would have happened, there was no getting around 
that. I tore up the paper and granted my mistimed 
sentimentalities a permanent rest. 

Then, to business. I tested the electric signals from 
the gatling platform to the cave, and made sure that 
they were all right; I tested and retested those which 
commanded the fences — these were signals whereby I 
could break and renew the electric current in each 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 397 


fence independently of the others at will. I placed 
the brook-connection under the guard and authority of 
three of my best boys, who would alternate in two- 
hour watches all night and promptly obey my signal, 
if I should have occasion to give it—- three revolver- 
shots in quick succession. Sentry-duty was discarded 
for the night, and the corral left empty of life; I 
ordered that quiet be maintained in the cave, and the 
electric lights turned down to a glimmer. 

As soon as it was good and dark, I shut off the 
current from all the fences, and then groped my way 
out to the embankment bordering our side of the great 
dynamite ditch. I crept to the top of it and lay there 
on the slant of the muck to watch. But it was too 
dark to see anything. As for sounds, there were none. 
The stillness was deathlike. True, there were the 
usual night-sounds of the country — the whir of night- 
birds, the buzzing of insects, the barking of distant 
dogs, the mellow lowing of far-off kine— but these 
didn’t seem to break the stillness, they only intensified 
it, and added a grewsome melancholy to it into the 
bargain. | 

I presently gave up looking, the night shut down so 
black, but I kept my ears strained to catch the least 
suspicious sound, for I judged I had only to wait, and 
I shouldn’t be disappointed. However, I had to wait 
a longtime. At last I caught what you may call in- 
distinct glimpses of sound —dulled metallic sound. I 
pricked up my ears, then, and held my breath, for this 
was the sort of thing I had been waiting for. This 
sound thickened, and approached — from toward the 
north, Presently, I heard it at my own level—the 
ridge-top of the opposite embankment, a hundred feet 
or more away. Then J seemed to see a row of black 
dots appear along that ridge—human heads? I 
"couldn't tell; it mightn’t be anything at all; you 


398 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is 
out of focus. However, the question was soon settled. 
I heard that metallic noise descending into the great 
ditch. It augmented fast, it spread all along, and it 
unmistakably furnished me this fact: an armed host 
was taking up its quarters in the ditch. Yes, these 
people were arranging a little surprise party for us. 
We could expect entertainment about dawn, possibly 
earlier. 

I groped my way back to the corral now; I had 
seen enough. I went to the platform and signaled to 
turn the current on to the two inner fences. Then I 
went into the cave, and found everything satisfactory 
there — nobody awake but the working-watch. I woke 
Clarence and told him the great ditch was filling up 
with men, and that I believed all the knights were 
coming for us ina body. It was my notion that as 
soon as dawn approached we could expect the ditch’s 
ambuscaded thousands to swarm up over the embank- 
ment and make an assault, and be followed immediately 
by the rest of their army. 

Clarence said: 

** They will be wanting to send a scout or two in the 
dark to make preliminary observations. Why not take 
the lightning off the outer fences, and give them a 
chance?’’ 

*“I’ve already done it, Clarence. Did you ever 
know me to be inhospitable ?’’ 

**No, you are a good heart. I want to go and—’’ 

** Be a reception committee? I will go, too.’’ 

We crossed the corral and lay down together between 
the two inside fences. Even the dim light of the cave 
had disordered our eyesight somewhat, but the focus 
straightway began to regulate itself and soon it was ad- 
justed for present circumstances. We had had to feel 
our way before, but we could make out to see the 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 396 


fence posts now. We started a whispered conversa 
tion, but suddenly Clarence broke off and said: 

** What is that?’’ 

** What is what?’’ 

** That thing yonder.’’ 

** What thing — where ?’”’ 

““There beyond you a little piece—a dark some- 
thing — a dull shape of some kind — against the second 
fence.’? 

I gazed and he gazed. I said: 

** Could it be a man, Clarence?’’ 

**No, I think not. If you notice, it looks a lit— 
why, it zs a man! —leaning on the fence.’’ 

**T certainly believe it is; let us go and see.”’ 

We crept along on our hands and knees until we 
were pretty close, and then looked up. Yes, it wasa 
man——a dim great figure in armor, standing erect, 
with both hands on the upper wire—and, of course, 
there was a smell of burning flesh. Poor fellow, dead 
as a door-nail, and never knew what hurt him. He 
stood there like a statue—~no motion about him, ex- 
cept that his plumes swished about a little in the night 
wind. We rose up and looked in through the bars of 
his visor, but couldn’t make out whether we knew him 
or not — features too dim and shadowed. 

We heard muffled sounds approaching, and we sank 
down to the ground where we were. We made out 
another knight vaguely; he was coming very stealthily, 
and feeling his way. He was near enough now for us 
to see him put out a hand, find an upper wire, then 
bend and step under it and over the lower one. Now 
he arrived at the first knight— and started slightly 
when he discovered him. He stood a moment— no 
doubt wondering why the other one didn’t move on; 
then he said, in a low voice, ‘* Why dreamest thou 
here, good Sir Mar —’’ then he laid his hand on the 


400 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


corpse’s shoulder — and just uttered a little soft moan 
and sunk down dead. Killed by a dead man, you 
see — killed by a dead friend, in fact. There was 
something awful about it. 

These early birds came scattering along after each 
other, about one every five minutes in our vicinity, 
during half an hour. They brought no armor of 
offense but their swords; as a rule, they carried the 
sword ready in the hand, and put it forward and found 
the wires with it. We would now and then see a blue 
spark when the knight that caused it was so far away 
as to be invisible to us; but we knew what had hap- 
pened, all the same; poor fellow, he had touched a 
charged wire with his sword and been elected. We 
had brief intervals of grim stillness, interrupted with 
piteous regularity by the clash made by the falling of 
an iron-clad; and this sort of thing was going on, right 
along, and was very creepy there in the dark and 
lonesomeness. 

We concluded to make a tour between the inner 
fences. We elected to walk upright, for convenience’s 
sake; we argued that if discerned, we should be taken 
for friends rather than enemies, and in any case we 
should be out of reach of swords, and these gentry did 
not seem to have any spears along. Well, it was a 
curious trip. Everywhere dead men were lying out- 
side the second fence—not plainly visible, but still 
visible; and we counted fifteen of those pathetic 
statues —— dead knights standing with their hands on 
the upper wire. 

One thing seemed to be sufficiently demonstrated: 
our current was so tremendous that it killed before the 
victim could cry out. Pretty soon we detected a 
muffled and heavy sound, and next moment we guessed 
what it was. It was a surprise in force coming! I 
whispered Clarence to go and wake the army, and 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 401 


notify it to wait in silence in the cave for further orders. 
He was soon back, and we stood by the inner fence 
and watched the silent lightning do its awful work 
upon that swarming host. One could make out but 
little of detail; but he could note that a black mass 
was piling itself up beyond the second fence. That 
swelling bulk was dead men! Our camp was enclosed 
with a solid wall of the dead —a bulwark, a breast- 
work, of corpses, you may say. One terrible thing 
about this thing was the absence of human voices; 
there were no cheers, no war cries; being intent upon 
a surprise, these men moved as noiselessly as they 
could; and always when the front rank was near 
enough to their goal to make it proper for them to 
begin to get a shout ready, of course they struck the 
fatal line and went down without testifying. 

I sent a current through the third fence now; and 
almost immediately through the fourth and fifth, so 
quickly were the gaps filled up. I believed the time 
was come now for my climax; I believed that that 
whole army was in our trap. Anyway, it was high 
time to find out. So I touched a button and set fifty 
electric suns aflame on the top of our precipice. 

Land, what a sight! We were enclosed in three 
walls of dead men! All the other fences were pretty 
nearly filled with the living, who were stealthily work- 
ing their way forward through the wires. The sudden 
glare paralyzed this host, petrified them, you may say, 
with astonishment; there was just one instant for me 
to utilize their immobility in, and I didn’t lose the 
chance. You see, in another instant they would have 
recovered their faculties, then they’d have burst into a 
cheer and made a rush, and my wires would have gone 
down before it; but that lost instant lost them their 
opportunity forever; while even that slight fragment of 
time was still unspent, I shot the current through all 

26 . 


402 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


the fences and struck the whole host dead in their 
tracks! There was a groan you could hear! It voiced 
the death-pang of eleven thousand men. It swelled 
out on the night with awful pathos. 

A glance showed that the rest of the enemy—per- 
haps ten thousand strong—were between us and the 
encircling ditch, and pressing forward to the assault. 
Consequently we had them all! and had them past 
help. Time for the last act of the tragedy. I fired the 
three appointed revolver shots—which meant: 

“Turn on the water!” 

There was a sudden rush and roar, and in a minute 
the mountain brook was raging through the big ditch 
and creating a river a hundred feet wide and twenty- 
five deep. 

“Stand to your guns, men! Open fire!” 

The thirteen gatlings began to vomit death into the 
fated ten thousand. They halted, they stood their 
eround a moment against that withering deluge of fire, 
then they broke, faced about and swept toward the 
ditch like chaff before a gale. A full fourth part of 
their force never reached the top of the lofty embank- 
ment; the three-fourths reached it and plunged over— 
to death by drowning. 

Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire, 
armed resistance was totally annihilated, the campaign 
was ended, we fifty-four were masters of England! 
Twenty-five thousand men lay dead around us. 

But how treacherous is fortune! In a little while— 
say an hour—happened a thing, by my own fault, which 
—but I have no heart to write that. Let the recond 
end here. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 


A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE 


| CLARENCE, must write it for him. He proposed 
9 that we two go out and see if any help could be 
accorded the wounded. I was strenuous against the 
project. I said that if there were many, we could do 
but little for them; and it would not be wise for us to 
trust ourselves among them, anyway. But he. could 
seldom be turned from a purpose once formed; so we 
shut off the electric current from the fences, took an 
escort along, climbed over the enclosing ramparts of 
dead knights, and moved out upon the field. The first 
wounded man who appealed for help was sitting with 
his back against a dead comrade. When The Boss 
bent over him and spoke to him, the man recognized 
him and stabbed him. That knight was Sir Meliag- 
raunce, as I found out by tearing off his helmet. He 
will not ask for help any more. 

We carried The Boss to the cave and gave his 
wound, which was not very serious, the best care we 
could. In this service we had the help of Merlin, 
though we did not know it. He was disguised as a 
woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant good- 
wife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face and 
smooth shaven, he had appeared a few days after The 
Boss was hurt, and offered to cook for us, saying her 
people had gone off to join certain new camps which 

2 (403) 


404 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


the enemy were forming, and that she was starving. 
The Boss had been getting along very well, and had 
amused himself with finishing up his record. 

We were glad to have this woman, for we were short 
handed. We were in a trap, you see—a trap of our 
own making. If we stayed where we were, our dead 
would killus; if we moved out of our defenses, we 
should no longer be invincible. We had conquered ; 
én turn we were conquered. The Boss recognized 
this; we all recognized it. If we could go to one of 
those new camps and patch up some kind of terms 
with the enemy — yes, but The Boss could not go, and 
neither could I, for I was among the first that were 
made sick by the poisonous air bred by those dead 
thousands. Others were taken down, and still others. 
To-morrow — 

To-morrow. It is here. And with it the end. 
About midnight I awoke, and saw that hag making 
curious passes in the air about The Boss’s head and 
face, and wondered what it meant. Everybody but 
the dynamo-watch lay steeped in sleep; there was no 
sound. The woman ceased from her mysterious fool- 
ery, and started tip-toeing toward the door. I called 
out: 

**Stop! What have you been doing?’’ 

She halted, and said with an accent of malicious 
satisfaction : 

‘*'Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! These 
others are perishing—you also. Ye shall all die in 
this place—-every one—except im. He sleepeth 
now-—and shall sleep thirteen centuries. 1 am 
Merlin !’’ 

Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him 
that he reeled about like a drunken man, and presently 
fetched up against one of our wires. His mouth is 
spread open yet; apparently he is still laughing. I 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 405 


suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh until 
the corpse turns to dust. 

The Boss has never stirred -—sleeps like a stone. If 
he does not wake to-day we shall understand what 
kind of a sleep it is, and his body will then be borne 
to a place in one of the remote recesses of the cave 
where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for 
the rest of us— well, it is agreed that if any one of us 
ever escapes alive from this place, he will write the 
fact here, and loyally hide this Manuscript with The 
Boss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be he 
alive or dead. 


THE END OF MANUSCRIPT 


FINAL P. S. By M. T. 


HE dawn was come when I laid the Manuscript 
aside. The rain had almost ceased, the world 
was gray and sad, the exhausted storm was sighing 
and sobbing itself to rest. I went to the stranger’s 
room, and listened at his door, which was slightly ajar. 
I could hear his voice, and so I knocked. There was 
no answer, but I still heard the voice. I peeped in. 
The man lay on his back in bed, talking brokenly but 
with spirit, and punctuating with his arms, which he 
thrashed about, restlessly, as sick people do in de- 
lirium. I slipped in softly and bent over him. His 
mutterings and ejaculations went on. I spoke— merely 
a word, to call his attention. His glassy eyes and his 
ashy face were alight in an instant with pleasure, grati- 
tude, gladness, welcome: 

**Oh, Sandy, you are come at last—how I have 
longed for you! Sit by me—do not leave me— 
never leave me again, Sandy, never again. Where is 
your hand? — give it me, dear, let me hold it—there 
— now all is well, all is peace, and I am happy again — 
we are happy again, isn’t it so, Sandy? You are so 
dim, so vague, you are but a mist, a cloud, but you 
are ere, and that is blessedness sufficient; and I have 
your hand; don’t take it away —it is for only a little 
while, I shall not require it long...... Was that the 
RYE is Salon 20g Hello-Central!...... She doesn’t answer. 

(406) 


A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 407 


Asleep, perhaps? Bring her when she wakes, and let 
me touch her hands, her face, her hair, and teli her 


good-bye...... Sandy |. a:0.8 ss Yes, you are there. I 
lost myself a moment, and I thought you were 
EF iia) Have I been sick long? It must be so; 


it seems months to me. And such dreams! such 
strange and awful dreams, Sandy! Dreams that were 
as real as reality —delirium, of course, but so real! 
Why, I thought the king was dead, I thought you 
were in Gaul and couldn’t get home, I thought there 
was a revolution; in the fantastic frenzy of these 
dreams, I thought that Clarence and I and a hand- 
ful of my cadets fought and exterminated the whole 
chivalry of England! But even that was not the 
strangest. I seemed to be a creature out of a remote 
unborn age, centuries hence, and even ¢hat was as real 
as the rest! Yes, I seemed fo have flown back out of 
that age into this of ours, and then forward to it again, 
and was set down, a stranger and forlorn in that strange 
England, with an abyss of thirteen centuries yawning 
between me and you! between me and my home and 
my friends! between me and all that is dear to me, all 
that could make life worth the living! It was awful— 
awfuler than you can ever imagine, Sandy. Ah, 
watch by me, Sandy —stay by me every moment— 
don’t let me go out of my mind again; death is noth- 
ing, let it come, but not with those dreams, not with 
the torture of those hideous dreams -~-I cannot endure 
that again. .<... STAGE Pan yikes x 

He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then 
for a time he lay silent, and apparently sinking away 
toward death. Presently his fingers began to pick 
busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his 
end was at hand. With the first suggestion of the 
death-rattle in his throat he started up slightly, and 
seemed to listen: then he said: 


408 A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 


ae DapIErL hr .8 It is the king! The drawbridge, 
there! Man the battlements! — turn out the —” 

He was getting up his last ‘‘ effect’’; but he never 
finished it. 


THE END 











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